Overwatch Spotlight 2026 digest
Feb. 5th, 2026 03:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
requiemsSpotlight is where we're given something of a preview for what's to come for the next six months/vaguely for the rest of the calendar year, and whilst it has only officially happened once before, the first new season of the year usually brings with it a major shakeup that isn't always received all that positively and is kind of anxiety inducing, personally. Blizzard higher ups, we want to bring in new people and make the game compelling in new ways. My brain that just wants to open the same thing every day and vibe for an hour without having to overthink too much, No.
Last year the big feature was Stadium. We got a new competitive weapon colour type shown for the first time, being galactic. We got a preview of concept art for two maps for core game modes that still aren't in the game and won't be for at least four to six more months (lol). We got a few strict season themes which were largely abandoned in the latter half of the year, had some mythic skin previews, saw Freja's in game model for the first time, saw Wuyang's concept art, Vendetta was first teased... roughly similar expectation. They've been doing a lot of lore teasing with Vendetta overthrowing the current leader of Talon to establish herself as a powerful figure, it's her birthright and owed her etc, but they've done build up before and majorly failed to deliver with Ramattra, so didn't really know what would happen on that front, or how big it would be.
What we got was:
• the "2" branding is being dropped and we are going back to "Overwatch". This means the Persona 5 collab curse of killing off games it collabs with came true
• a full animated cinematic for the first time since 2023!!
• we are getting yearly lore cycles, which I can't believe is happening and I am so tentative about until I see them deliver on that, this year is full Overwatch vs Talon, back to pigeon holed dichotomy, so rip if the heroes you like aren't in those factions
• after 21 seasons we are getting actual lore faction skins, that's the BP theme. Updated uniforms. Unfortunately again if your faves aren't part of those two factions haha
• Doomfist has been usurped but absolutely isn't dead. My money is on him showing up halfway through the year or to link into the next year perhaps. I'd like to revisit omnics and Null Sector next year though
• map reworks, including Gibraltar but now destroyed as there's a follow up cinematic cutscene of Talon flying in to destroy the OW base
• UI overhaul so it's horizontal instead of vertical, so will be an absolute nightmare on console, I can guarantee half of it will be bugged on launch. Which is funny because they talked about it being more streamlined specifically and that it won't be messed up. Yeah sure
• further to the above it kind of irks me that aiming was messed up this season for console and whilst we are getting a revert, it comes at the cost that there's so many new heroes and a UI I don't like and the last time I got to play my comfort game properly was November... 😢
• faction events where your games contribute to one of two sides and you get rewards based on? Which side succeeded? If you contribute enough? Kind of unclear right now. You can swap between factions between weeks, but it's also not clear if you have to pick and choose and miss out on rewards. It's kind of event challenges we already have, kind of a second bp, unclear how much grinding has to be done
• lootbox update for shop and events cosmetics for the last year, but, still no mention of the first twenty battlepass items and if we'll ever regain access to those (sigh)
• TEN new heroes this year, with five launching NEXT WEEK. contextually, and not counting the OW2 launch ladies, they've added ten since December 2022. This cannot possibly go wrong
• new comp weapon colour, Crimson Wolf, which has a Talon overlay and the red is very muddied and not crimson at all, I'll have to see it in game to say if I like it or not
Lore wise we'll see what comes next. Vendetta has toppled Doomfist, the gauntlet is detached, and has been show to extend feelers to Max (not one of the new heroes alas) and Domina (being added next week). The most interesting part of the cinematic to me was how Widow reacted: it takes a lot to make an emotionless assassin feel something, but whilst Vendetta is monologuing about taking over she looks directly across her at Sombra who is equally unhappy. Spider and hacker are going to shake things up at some point.
I also got to see Amélie do her little micro expressions when she's Thinking again and ugh. I love her so much.
It's just, unfortunate there's so much focus on the new girl, really. And Doomfist may not be my favourite character ever but he's such a good developed character, I want him, not new girl, lol. But again holding my tongue until there's more results to work with. I foresee her being humbled/toppled, tbh.
There's also some art of Vendetta with the Deadlock triplets... you stay the fuck away from Deadlock girl. Don't you fucking dare align Ashe with Talon or I will divorce from the lore so fucking fast.
New hero thoughts from just their reveals...
Domina
![](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkYwpQm63xqNaj1QdOV5cyDOCoUp6qTsG_S-rMg1I4zYsF7gBMPs8eyVc&s=10")
• her kit looks cool as fuck. Hard light as a concept is so much fun to mess with I'm glad they're doing more of it. I love the shield having sections, I love the additional arms to give her bulk, I love her weapon being a gun but also a beam. As soon as they named her ult as panopticon you just know it's going to be funnn
• vice president of a known faction (Vishkar) and now gives Symmetra and Lifeweaver both reason to fully divorce from it as she will be there to represent it
• her design is... a mixed bag. Community was hoping for an older woman: she is not that, or if she is, very young faced. I like the classy, snazzy look, it's very evocative of sophistication but will dirty her hands too, but the boobs and arms folded under the boobs is horrendous and terribly sexualised. "Domina" coupled with that gives a very particular image and they've already started on the mommy sorry meme sex jokes and I fucking hate when they reduce heroes to fucking memes right out the gate (the reason I don't like Venture is because of this, they took the memes and made it their full personality going forward) and as an aroace person lmao I feel so alienated when the jokes turn into sex jokes. fuck off. Finally a woman with some melanin and this is what you do. You're on thin ice Blizzard
Emre
• Emre is a named Overwatch agent we've known about since 2016, with one former visual appearance in a photo that has since been retconned as the ages of characters in it were later changed. He next appeared during Freja's animated short teaser when Max hires her to hunt him down, in her comic as her mentor as they were both search and rescue, he grew disillusioned and left, and then in the last couple of weeks with his updated appearance. So he's kind of lore but also not.
• Still, Emre has been longed for as most other named agents have been added in at some point. This is a beautiful day for /emremains. I hope they're having a fantastic time.
• another former Overwatch agent now in Talon to add to the pile
• personally his design is kind of meh. What's more interesting is that he's tied into The Conspiracy (what Sombra has been digging into) and that he seems to be controlled by the conspiracy, the big glowing red eye on his chest, that fully takes over his personality and body when he ults. He's Turkish, but his ult is Finnish! He has a boot up line on the UI when he respawns that's Finnish! Coincidentally one of the God AI's that supposedly turned itself off was in Finland (Chernobog)! That's fun, he'll get more uncovered as we go I feel
Anran
• they massacred her face. She's so visually disappointing
• Anran is Wuyang's older sister, she's had a decent amount of appearances already alongside him in his comic/animated short. She recently had another visual appearance in a different outfit (not this one) and each time she's been visually distinct even as her outfits changed from her elemental college uniform to something more casual to whatever the fuck this is
• like I'm not joking, she's completely babyfied. No more hook nose, imperfect features. I'm sad because the fans aspect was appealing to me
• I have concerns about allowing a dps to rez themselves when they're about to die by using ult quite frankly. Vendetta is also unbalanced as fuck still with her movement and momentum so we don't need another flanker cmon now
• she does bonus damage with burning dots... like Mauga. So probably benefits from Ashe fire also. Stop taking away from my girl's thing!!!!!!
Like fr where did this girl go I was so into that second outfit.
Mizuki
• our fourth Japanese hero everybody
• I like his kit. I like that he's part of an organisation that's been made prominent in the lore, the Hashimoto, but we have no one actually part of that organisation. I like that it gives a direct contention to Kiriko and Hanzo, and will develop that storyline. He's undercover in Kiri's group, the Yokai... I don't like that other characters have been waiting far longer for someone from their organisation and have gotten nothing
• fine but he lacks interest to me. The guy he's based off of in older art could have been an omnic. This email could have been an omnic. jrpg anime boy yawn
Jetpack Cat (Fika)
• showed up one day at Overwatch base and Brigitte adopted her. 10/10 cat distribution system lore in action no notes
• probably part of Lucheng's animal experiment stuff like with Hammond and Winston so it's probably actually dark as hell but for now, cat!!!! Also kind of lore on that we've seen jetpack cat as a concept for maybe seven years atp lol
• always flying out of view and very very small and very very very chaotic with being able to lift their team/maybe the enemy team? whenever they want maybe forever. I have a lot of concerns about trolling potential
• however I fear I have to main her because her voice actress is... Jennifer Hale. Yes, that Jennifer Hale. Who also voices Ashe. This is the most complex Ashe gets a cat skin after all those survey skins end result. Fika has ties to both my fave heroes I'm DOOMED. Also if they got her in to do meows surely they got her in for Ashe lines!!!
We also had the five silhouettes for the rest of the year - one appears to be a MEKA, perhaps for D.Mon and Beast, one of D.Va's squad and I would love if it was her, I've been on the Yuna train for years. Two are omnics - one with a cane that looks like a detective and the other perhaps a sniper and I am holding out every single hope for Bars. The other two are dps, one has oni horns so oh boy probably another Japanese hero, coincidentally timed with the Tokyo map we saw last year (unless we get a curveball and perhaps get one of the Phreaks?) and the other has drones. It could be Frankie - Ashe's Frankie, she uses drones, interestingly Route 66 is used as the map behind the season she's teased for - but I also doubt it. I guess we'll see in April time. There also seem to be more women than men??, and I'm going to have to grind for more gold weapons for all women since they're adding at least five how could you do this to me already lmao.
The two omnics are going to be the last of the ten to be added, which lends credence to maybe omnic focus next year???, but also makes me sad because I want omnics now!!!! I want them now!!! You're adding five and none of them are omnics!!!
Anyway, today is the last time Ashe will be first in the hero gallery for dps, as Anran is getting a trial tomorrow. 2022-2026, we had a good run 💔
Last year the big feature was Stadium. We got a new competitive weapon colour type shown for the first time, being galactic. We got a preview of concept art for two maps for core game modes that still aren't in the game and won't be for at least four to six more months (lol). We got a few strict season themes which were largely abandoned in the latter half of the year, had some mythic skin previews, saw Freja's in game model for the first time, saw Wuyang's concept art, Vendetta was first teased... roughly similar expectation. They've been doing a lot of lore teasing with Vendetta overthrowing the current leader of Talon to establish herself as a powerful figure, it's her birthright and owed her etc, but they've done build up before and majorly failed to deliver with Ramattra, so didn't really know what would happen on that front, or how big it would be.
What we got was:
• the "2" branding is being dropped and we are going back to "Overwatch". This means the Persona 5 collab curse of killing off games it collabs with came true
• a full animated cinematic for the first time since 2023!!
• we are getting yearly lore cycles, which I can't believe is happening and I am so tentative about until I see them deliver on that, this year is full Overwatch vs Talon, back to pigeon holed dichotomy, so rip if the heroes you like aren't in those factions
• after 21 seasons we are getting actual lore faction skins, that's the BP theme. Updated uniforms. Unfortunately again if your faves aren't part of those two factions haha
• Doomfist has been usurped but absolutely isn't dead. My money is on him showing up halfway through the year or to link into the next year perhaps. I'd like to revisit omnics and Null Sector next year though
• map reworks, including Gibraltar but now destroyed as there's a follow up cinematic cutscene of Talon flying in to destroy the OW base
• UI overhaul so it's horizontal instead of vertical, so will be an absolute nightmare on console, I can guarantee half of it will be bugged on launch. Which is funny because they talked about it being more streamlined specifically and that it won't be messed up. Yeah sure
• further to the above it kind of irks me that aiming was messed up this season for console and whilst we are getting a revert, it comes at the cost that there's so many new heroes and a UI I don't like and the last time I got to play my comfort game properly was November... 😢
• faction events where your games contribute to one of two sides and you get rewards based on? Which side succeeded? If you contribute enough? Kind of unclear right now. You can swap between factions between weeks, but it's also not clear if you have to pick and choose and miss out on rewards. It's kind of event challenges we already have, kind of a second bp, unclear how much grinding has to be done
• lootbox update for shop and events cosmetics for the last year, but, still no mention of the first twenty battlepass items and if we'll ever regain access to those (sigh)
• TEN new heroes this year, with five launching NEXT WEEK. contextually, and not counting the OW2 launch ladies, they've added ten since December 2022. This cannot possibly go wrong
• new comp weapon colour, Crimson Wolf, which has a Talon overlay and the red is very muddied and not crimson at all, I'll have to see it in game to say if I like it or not
Lore wise we'll see what comes next. Vendetta has toppled Doomfist, the gauntlet is detached, and has been show to extend feelers to Max (not one of the new heroes alas) and Domina (being added next week). The most interesting part of the cinematic to me was how Widow reacted: it takes a lot to make an emotionless assassin feel something, but whilst Vendetta is monologuing about taking over she looks directly across her at Sombra who is equally unhappy. Spider and hacker are going to shake things up at some point.
I also got to see Amélie do her little micro expressions when she's Thinking again and ugh. I love her so much.
It's just, unfortunate there's so much focus on the new girl, really. And Doomfist may not be my favourite character ever but he's such a good developed character, I want him, not new girl, lol. But again holding my tongue until there's more results to work with. I foresee her being humbled/toppled, tbh.
There's also some art of Vendetta with the Deadlock triplets... you stay the fuck away from Deadlock girl. Don't you fucking dare align Ashe with Talon or I will divorce from the lore so fucking fast.
New hero thoughts from just their reveals...
Domina
• her kit looks cool as fuck. Hard light as a concept is so much fun to mess with I'm glad they're doing more of it. I love the shield having sections, I love the additional arms to give her bulk, I love her weapon being a gun but also a beam. As soon as they named her ult as panopticon you just know it's going to be funnn
• vice president of a known faction (Vishkar) and now gives Symmetra and Lifeweaver both reason to fully divorce from it as she will be there to represent it
• her design is... a mixed bag. Community was hoping for an older woman: she is not that, or if she is, very young faced. I like the classy, snazzy look, it's very evocative of sophistication but will dirty her hands too, but the boobs and arms folded under the boobs is horrendous and terribly sexualised. "Domina" coupled with that gives a very particular image and they've already started on the mommy sorry meme sex jokes and I fucking hate when they reduce heroes to fucking memes right out the gate (the reason I don't like Venture is because of this, they took the memes and made it their full personality going forward) and as an aroace person lmao I feel so alienated when the jokes turn into sex jokes. fuck off. Finally a woman with some melanin and this is what you do. You're on thin ice Blizzard
Emre
• Emre is a named Overwatch agent we've known about since 2016, with one former visual appearance in a photo that has since been retconned as the ages of characters in it were later changed. He next appeared during Freja's animated short teaser when Max hires her to hunt him down, in her comic as her mentor as they were both search and rescue, he grew disillusioned and left, and then in the last couple of weeks with his updated appearance. So he's kind of lore but also not.
• Still, Emre has been longed for as most other named agents have been added in at some point. This is a beautiful day for /emremains. I hope they're having a fantastic time.
• another former Overwatch agent now in Talon to add to the pile
• personally his design is kind of meh. What's more interesting is that he's tied into The Conspiracy (what Sombra has been digging into) and that he seems to be controlled by the conspiracy, the big glowing red eye on his chest, that fully takes over his personality and body when he ults. He's Turkish, but his ult is Finnish! He has a boot up line on the UI when he respawns that's Finnish! Coincidentally one of the God AI's that supposedly turned itself off was in Finland (Chernobog)! That's fun, he'll get more uncovered as we go I feel
Anran
• they massacred her face. She's so visually disappointing
• Anran is Wuyang's older sister, she's had a decent amount of appearances already alongside him in his comic/animated short. She recently had another visual appearance in a different outfit (not this one) and each time she's been visually distinct even as her outfits changed from her elemental college uniform to something more casual to whatever the fuck this is
• like I'm not joking, she's completely babyfied. No more hook nose, imperfect features. I'm sad because the fans aspect was appealing to me
• I have concerns about allowing a dps to rez themselves when they're about to die by using ult quite frankly. Vendetta is also unbalanced as fuck still with her movement and momentum so we don't need another flanker cmon now
• she does bonus damage with burning dots... like Mauga. So probably benefits from Ashe fire also. Stop taking away from my girl's thing!!!!!!
Like fr where did this girl go I was so into that second outfit.
Mizuki
• our fourth Japanese hero everybody
• I like his kit. I like that he's part of an organisation that's been made prominent in the lore, the Hashimoto, but we have no one actually part of that organisation. I like that it gives a direct contention to Kiriko and Hanzo, and will develop that storyline. He's undercover in Kiri's group, the Yokai... I don't like that other characters have been waiting far longer for someone from their organisation and have gotten nothing
• fine but he lacks interest to me. The guy he's based off of in older art could have been an omnic. This email could have been an omnic. jrpg anime boy yawn
Jetpack Cat (Fika)
• showed up one day at Overwatch base and Brigitte adopted her. 10/10 cat distribution system lore in action no notes
• probably part of Lucheng's animal experiment stuff like with Hammond and Winston so it's probably actually dark as hell but for now, cat!!!! Also kind of lore on that we've seen jetpack cat as a concept for maybe seven years atp lol
• always flying out of view and very very small and very very very chaotic with being able to lift their team/maybe the enemy team? whenever they want maybe forever. I have a lot of concerns about trolling potential
• however I fear I have to main her because her voice actress is... Jennifer Hale. Yes, that Jennifer Hale. Who also voices Ashe. This is the most complex Ashe gets a cat skin after all those survey skins end result. Fika has ties to both my fave heroes I'm DOOMED. Also if they got her in to do meows surely they got her in for Ashe lines!!!
We also had the five silhouettes for the rest of the year - one appears to be a MEKA, perhaps for D.Mon and Beast, one of D.Va's squad and I would love if it was her, I've been on the Yuna train for years. Two are omnics - one with a cane that looks like a detective and the other perhaps a sniper and I am holding out every single hope for Bars. The other two are dps, one has oni horns so oh boy probably another Japanese hero, coincidentally timed with the Tokyo map we saw last year (unless we get a curveball and perhaps get one of the Phreaks?) and the other has drones. It could be Frankie - Ashe's Frankie, she uses drones, interestingly Route 66 is used as the map behind the season she's teased for - but I also doubt it. I guess we'll see in April time. There also seem to be more women than men??, and I'm going to have to grind for more gold weapons for all women since they're adding at least five how could you do this to me already lmao.
The two omnics are going to be the last of the ten to be added, which lends credence to maybe omnic focus next year???, but also makes me sad because I want omnics now!!!! I want them now!!! You're adding five and none of them are omnics!!!
Anyway, today is the last time Ashe will be first in the hero gallery for dps, as Anran is getting a trial tomorrow. 2022-2026, we had a good run 💔
