Next weekend, you can try out Overwatch 2's next hero ahead of her official release with season 20 of Blizzard's online multiplayer hero shooter in December. Or, at least, you can race the other DPS player for the honor.
Vendetta is a sword-wielder in a game where almost everyone else has guns. She's not the first melee-ranged hero in Overwatch: We've always had Reinhardt bonking enemies with his hammer, and Brigitte's rocket flail is similarly close-range. And before Doomfist was moved over to the tank role for Overwatch 2, he was the first melee-focused damage hero. But it's still an ambitious thing to put a hero with very limited range into a game focused on shooting firearms.
In group interviews with the media, Associate Game Director Alec Dawson said one of the goals behind Vendetta was to "make sure there's a play style…that players haven't seen before and one that might be really attractive for a whole new subset of players."
She's also a fascinating addition from the narrative side of things. Vendetta's father, Antonio, was killed by Reaper as part of Overwatch's black ops branch, Blackwatch, in the playable Retribution mission. Her story trailer and hero name make it clear she's out for revenge, and it seems like both Overwatch and their enemies, Talon, might be on her hit list.
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Vendetta's trial weekend comes two years after Activision Blizzard was acquired by Xbox-maker Microsoft. Since the acquisition, Overwatch 2 has ramped up bold experiments such as changes to health and projectile sizes, and the addition of perks as part of the core gameplay loop. Meanwhile, Xbox continues to balance its hardware ambitions, like the Xbox ROG Ally, against its general push to expand Xbox Game Pass (including a hefty price hike). We've also seen the gates between Xbox and PlayStation lower, as Xbox brought longtime Xbox exclusive Gears of War to PS5.
Ahead of Vendetta's hero trial, I spoke with Dawson and Bryan Bedford, a senior character artist for the game, about the new hero, her abilities and what it's like designing such a distinct hero.
Vendetta abilities
Dawson and Bedford described Vendetta as a "high-octane" character who's highly mobile but also very dependent on her abilities. Here's a quick rundown of what those abilities do.
Passive: Onslaught
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