Overwatch has introduced its 24th hero, a new Omnic character no one was predicting named Orisa. Orisa is the creation of genius girl child Efi Odele, who hails from the city of Numbani. Check out Orisa’s story trailer below:
In a separate developer update, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan discussed every aspect of Orisa, from lore to mechanics. Check out the developer update below:
Kaplan explains that Orisa is born from the OR-15 units Numbani citizens used to keep the peace against a local villain known as Doomfist. (Dun-dun DUNNN.) While the OR-15s were successful at first, Doomfist eventually triumphed over them in a horrific attack on Numbani Airport. While most citizens of Numbani gave up on their Omnic protectors, Efi did not. She took the pieces back to her workshop and created Orisa, “a single heroic unit that wasn’t supposed to be part of a huge battalion but was supposed to be a specific individual hero.”
In terms of the Overwatch timeline, Orisa is hot and fresh off the presses. “We have yet to see what Orisa is really going to do. So that’s part of what’s very exciting,” said Kaplan. “Most of our heroes have a big historical background. We’ve seen them succeed and fail in their past histories, where Orisa is new on the scene and it is Efi who has created her, who is really encouraging her to become a new hero of the future.”
Mechanically, Orisa is a tank. Her primary weapon is “the Fusion Driver” which is a projectile-based machine gun Kaplan described as a “high-sustained weapon with a large clip size.” Her alternate fire sends out a pulse like Zarya’s Graviton Charge; when you click your alternate fire again, it brings affected targets within its radius for a very short period of time, comparable to a mini Graviton Surge that can be performed more often to reposition targets for other team members to take advantage of. (You can also pull people around corners with it, so if you were ready to rage at Roadhog before…)
Orisa also has a tank ability called “Fortify,” which not only makes her tougher, but prevents her from being affected by any crowd control ability such as Pharah’s Concussive Blast. Her other ability is a protective barrier similar to Reinhardt’s barrier shield or Winston’s barrier bubble. It has a lot of range, is the size and shape of half of Winston’s bubble, and goes out anywhere she targets it. Orisa can use it on herself or put it out further in front to shield her allies. The barrier’s works the same as other barriers and has a similar amount of health.
Orisa’s ultimate is her Supercharger. When her ult is up, she removes the drumlike item on her back and throws it on the ground, which damage-boosts her allies in line of sight. The enemy team can kill the Supercharger, so Orisa must protect it with your barrier or hide it well.
Finally, Kaplan explained why Orisa was created. Orisa is intended to fulfill the role of “anchor tank,” something currently only Reinhardt does. “And what we mean by that is that Reinhardt almost anchors the entire team. With a properly positioned Reinhardt, the team builds and positions around Reinhardt. Because he doesn’t have a lot of mobility abilities and because he has that protective barrier in front of him, you sort of know where to position yourself and when the team is going to engage or disengage based upon what Reinhardt is doing.”
Kaplan added, “So we hope that in Orisa, there’s now another option to a low-mobility tank but one that brings a high amount of protection in her protective barrier where you kind of see her on the battlefield and go ‘oh okay, we’re approaching from this angle. I will get behind Orisa. I’ll follow Orisa, she’ll put the barrier up, we’ll follow her in and we’ll engage in that regard.”
Kaplan also shared his hopes that Orisa would fulfill fan expectations of a “visually challenging” female character. “We often hear that, you know, when it comes to female characters they tend to be more limited in their size and appearance, where the male characters get these really big and challenging visual designs that are very exciting and we’ve heard a lot of desire to have a very visually challenging female character. So that was fun for us to explore as well.”
In terms of Orisa’s fit with the current Overwatch characters, Kaplan wanted Orisa to be a hero of the next generation. “Most of all we wanted to bring a really cool hero with a lot of backstory that really rounded out our current cast,” he said, “that is not only these old-school heroes who took part in the old Overwatch and talon and Omnic battles of the past, but really brought something new and gave us some new hope to look forward to, what are the heroes of the future going to bring to Overwatch.”
Orisa is currently active on PC in the PTR. There’s no release date for her yet, but Kaplan promises “we’re going to keep working on her until she is just right and just perfect.”
What do you think of Orisa? Excited for our mighty 24th hero and new option for anchor tank? Looking forward to hero 25? Just glad we didn’t have to wait nearly as long as we did with Sombra? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
