In Development: Junkrat, Hallow’s End, and More!

[NoiseTank13]

One whole year is a short period of time now?

[Airlick]

7 out of 23 heroes released since May 2016 will be OW heroes. That's almost 30%, and Blizzard has 3 other IPs, 2 of which are much larger than OW. At this rate we'll have the whole OW roster in HotS by 2019. This is a short period of time for this many heroes of the same universe.

Obviously, this makes sense for Blizzard from marketing POV, since OW sold like crazy and the more OW heroes in HotS, the more chance for OW players to start playing HotS and spend money there.

[Stormcall]

7 out of 23 heroes released since May 2016 will be OW heroes.

Yes, because the other IPs have had TWO YEARS head start on them to get heroes in. That means they're just a TAD bit behind.

[Tenjen]

7 out of 23 heroes released since May 2016 will be OW heroes. That's almost 30%, and Blizzard has 3 other IPs, 2 of which are much larger than OW. At this rate we'll have the whole OW roster in HotS by 2019. This is a short period of time for this many heroes of the same universe.

Obviously, this makes sense for Blizzard from marketing POV, since OW sold like crazy and the more OW heroes in HotS, the more chance for OW players to start playing HotS and spend money there.

going by ratio's is a shallow argument. The other IP's have received a huge amount of representation. OW being the new IP means it cant be ignored. "Almost 30%" sounds just about right given how much time the others had and still have.

Many of the heroes in the other IP's need a great deal of imagination and design work (and thus large amounts of time) to create a set of talents and abilities because of how vaguely defined their abilities are or how widely varied their powers are. It takes time and effort to figure out a functional system which represents both the character and their practical ability to contribute to a fight ingame. IF OW chars buy them time and let them release a steady schedule of heroes while they work on the more difficult ones, then so be it. OW heroes aren't "getting in the way" of anything.

[Fabray]

Aw, no Junkenstein skin? It would have been perfect for this!

It is a bit disappointing, but the skin would be pretty redundant given that Greymane is getting his own Dr. Frankenstein skin, one that quite frankly works a lot better with the shape shifting. Either way, this new Junkrat skin is pretty great, hope he gets it in OW down the road.

[Austilias]

The new Cho'Gall skin looks lazy as hell. They could at least change his shadow blobs/etc into bouncing (and exploding) pumpkins.

Funnily enough, the Aba'thur/Xul skins from last year are way more tempting than this year's, but the mounts/etc are great.

[Astalnar]

I guess it's up to personal taste. After the last two batches featuring ETC Space Marine, and Death Knight Sonya this one seems rather underwhelming to me.

[Nerraw]

The new Cho'Gall skin looks lazy as hell. They could at least change his shadow blobs/etc into bouncing (and exploding) pumpkins.

Funnily enough, the Aba'thur/Xul skins from last year are way more tempting than this year's, but the mounts/etc are great.

I'm guessing it's a rare skin, not epic or legendary. We need more rare skins in the game to be honest.

[Tenjen]

The new Cho'Gall skin looks lazy as hell. They could at least change his shadow blobs/etc into bouncing (and exploding) pumpkins.

Funnily enough, the Aba'thur/Xul skins from last year are way more tempting than this year's, but the mounts/etc are great.

I guess it's up to personal taste. After the last two batches featuring ETC Space Marine, and Death Knight Sonya this one seems rather underwhelming to me.

Different skins have different grades. Not all of them are suppose to be or should be legendary level skins.

We got two unique skins (alt verse ones with large scale changes) and the others are more basic-rare grade skins meant to be garden variety. They're essentially just meant to be the heroes wearing Halloween costumes.

[breadisfunny]

Yeah, Heroes of Overwatch. a whopping 7 out of 71 heroes. OW takes up a whole less than 10% of the playable heroes, clearly the WHOLE GAME is Overwatch now!

overwatch hero after overwatch hero over and over and over. instead of oh i dunno MIXING IT UP BETWEEN FRANCHISES? nope let's just spam release overwatch garbage heroes. but of course you seem to fail in pattern recgonition. at least i can just keep stockpiling my gold.

[skorpio]

overwatch hero after overwatch hero over and over and over. instead of oh i dunno MIXING IT UP BETWEEN FRANCHISES? nope let's just spam release overwatch garbage heroes. but of course you seem to fail in pattern recgonition. at least i can just keep stockpiling my gold.

Stop crying. You probably won't see OW hero for loooong time now. Just because many of them is based on existing characters (Roadhog - Stitches) or have kit hard to implement in HoTs (Reinhardt) or their kit is poor (Soldier 76). Not many characters left - Hanzo and Doomfist for sure, and some others are debatable.

[Tenjen]

overwatch hero after overwatch hero over and over and over. instead of oh i dunno MIXING IT UP BETWEEN FRANCHISES? nope let's just spam release overwatch garbage heroes. but of course you seem to fail in pattern recognition. at least i can just keep stockpiling my gold.

2 heroes in a row after a host of other heroes from all franchises and a hugely demanded Warcraft hero. The last duo release of OW heroes was back in May. seems pretty well mixed to me. so much for pattern recognition.

Not only that but you're arguing from the perspective of someone who rabidly froths at the mouth vs OW heroes. Your points only work for that perspective. To the rest of us who dont share that, its less than meaningless.

atleast i can keep stacking wins against people who arbitrarily refuse to use certain heroes whether it helps their team or not.

[tristannarutofan]

Yea and its not JUST that the other franchises have had 2 years but they've covered all their bases.

Diablo has one of Each class, INCLUDING 2 from Diablo 2, 3 of the major angels, 2 demon lords. Like i cant take people talking about making the narrator a hero but, I mean the Heroes team is fantastic and they could come up with something, but the point is Everyone of import in Diablo is in the game.

Starcraft as well. You have the 3 most iconic zerg heroes (which is saying something since they are mostly mindless, there is what? 1 more sentient Zerg?) The main character, the kerrigan replacement, and the heroes foil, Every iconic Protoss hero representing each faction of assassin, caster , and tank is in the game. AND you have entire unit classes.

And of course warcraft has basically every based covered 3 times over.

Overwatch is just as much franchise as any of the others but its Extremely behind, Furthermore UNLIKE the other franchises it actually has some personality. All the Characters from WoW are non playable, the story of starcraft focuses on the heroes but the gameplay focuses on the units, and in Diablo each nephalem is literally interchangable. The story deliberately excludes details about how many heroes where involved, what their class was and even their gender. Was the hero a swordsman? a mage? a man? a woman? was there 1 of them? 5?

all very impersonal and thats one reason why things are the way they are. Raynor represents an ENTIRE faction , 1/3 of the Starcraft Universe. he's the small bit of personality 1/3 of hte game has. There is nothing wrong with that , the point is that heroes represents its games and What they represent is different from each hero. Raynor represents an entire military faction, 1/3 of the game units, rather than himself really. While Murky represnts not murlocs, but by representing murlocs he represents the comical, fun, and goofy aspect of Warcraft.

Meanwhile the Overwatch heroes have detailed grounded backstories, goals, personalities and bios. We know who Raynor is initially because he gets a small mention and then 'who he is' is told in the game, but each overwatch hero Existed before the game. They have a past and present and a future. 25 heroes with tons of lore built around making them UNIQUE. No single hero represents any of the others, even if they might represent a part of their world. when the game first started characters like Jaina, Valla, and Raynor represented large aspects of their game. Jaina represented herself, warcraft 3, WoW, Dalaran, and Warcraft Mages. However Junkrat represents only Junkrat and Australia. The only bit that he represents of overwatch OTHER than that is giving context to Roadhog, and the nature of villians in the overwatch Universe. Heck the other 23 characters might not even know he exists.

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But either way its pointless because as others have said, they have TWICE done a double hero, and thats really it, and its ridiculous to use whats happened this year as evidence of whats to come. Yes overwatch is WAY behind and needs more heroes in because it barely has any, but to think they'd do the entire roster by the second year is simple hyperbole

[RH92]

Stop crying. You probably won't see OW hero for loooong time now. Just because many of them is based on existing characters (Roadhog - Stitches) or have kit hard to implement in HoTs (Reinhardt) or their kit is poor (Soldier 76). Not many characters left - Hanzo and Doomfist for sure, and some others are debatable.

Hanzo was leaked in Kel'thuzad documentary and January 2018 seems like a possible date considering we pretty much know next two releases from another leak. Of which one is planned for Blizzcon and also appeared next to Hanzo in that video.

Yes overwatch is WAY behind and needs more heroes in because it barely has any, but to think they'd do the entire roster by the second year is simple hyperbole

This might be true, but Overwatch content was forced way too much in my opinion. I didn't mind it before, but HotS made me to hate it.

First we had Starcraft event featuring two Heroes of which one was from Overwatch. Then we proceed to have two Overwatch events within one year, a job well done!

And if they want to keep releasing Overwatch stuff, at least introduce a thematic variety. Still no Omnic or important Villain.

[Stormcall]

And if they want to keep releasing Overwatch stuff, at least introduce a thematic variety. Still no Omnic or important Villain.

I don't oppose OW heroes but damn, their selection has not been what I would wish for. My top 5 least favorite OW heroes:Lucio, Ana, Zarya, Junkrat, Sombra. Yeah, notice anything about that list?

[skorpio]

I don't oppose OW heroes but damn, their selection has not been what I would wish for. My top 5 least favorite OW heroes:Lucio, Ana, Zarya, Junkrat, Sombra. Yeah, notice anything about that list?

So Sombra is next?

[breadisfunny]

i don't understand why blizzard can't just rotate the heroes. overwatch,warcraft,diablo,starcraft,overwatch,warcraft,diablo,starcraft,etc. a lot of the complaints about it being heroes of overwatch would go away instead of releasing 3 of them in a row.

[RadasNoir]

So Sombra is next?

If only. If we can get her, Pharah, and maybe Doomfist, I'd probably stop caring about all the cries of "No more Overwatch characters in HotS!!1!". Unless Overwatch comes out with another character I'd rather see in HotS, anyway.

I can't help wondering if the people complaining about all of the OW heroes were just as vocal back when we were getting nothing but WarCraft assassins all in a row....

[Adramelch]

i don't understand why blizzard can't just rotate the heroes. overwatch,warcraft,diablo,starcraft,overwatch,warcraft,diablo,starcraft,etc. a lot of the complaints about it being heroes of overwatch would go away instead of releasing 3 of them in a row.

Presumably they are following a "when it's ready" sort of process. Or so they said back when they released however many WC assassins in a row.

[Porimlys]

Kinda surprised junkrat is an assassin! He screams tower toppling specialist to me. Looks fun though