Blizzard is up to something big with their latest tease of possible 24th hero Efi Oladele, including a PTR update that has changed the look of Numbani.
Efi is an 11-year-old girl genius and “winner of the Adawe Foundation’s genius grant for her achievements in AI and robotics,” according to a tweet earlier this week. In the blog post introducing her, she explains that she is keeping the secret of how she will use the grant money to herself, but her parents are taking her on a trip to celebrate. “It’ll be my first time flying, so I can’t wait,” she states.
But today the plot thickens: Blizzard has posted an image of an attack on Numbani airport, showing destroyed defense bots. The destroyed OR15 defense unit in the center of the image looks like it’s at the center of an impact crater that may have been caused either by the OR15 slamming into the wall at high force, or by a giant fist… a fist of doom…
Breaking Overwatch news: robot carnage at Numbani airport.
Players will be immediately familiar with the area, as it is one of the spawn points on the Numbani map. The tweet states, “OR15 defense units destroyed in confrontation with unidentified assailant at Numbani airport. No civilian casualties reported.” In the lower right-hand corner of the image you can see that the photo credit comes from Efi herself, whose first trip has now been incontrovertibly delayed until further notice.
The PTR has been updated to reflect this. The changes are cosmetic, but important: we see the scattered defense units splayed in sad brokenness all over the Numbani spawn area:
Overwatch’s PTR change to Numbani.
Doomfist’s gauntlet missing from the payload:
Change to Overwatch’s PTR in Numbani. 
Change to Overwatch’s PTR in Numbani.
And the holographic image inside the Doomfist display has been removed.
Overwatch’s PTR: Numbani before….
Some players are praying for a dual-hero release that includes Efi’s drones and bots as well as Doomfist. Jeff Kaplan has stated “24 is not who you think it is” in response to widespread speculation that Doomfist would be hero 24. So if Efi’s drones are somehow involved as hero 24, and Doomfist is instead hero 25, Kaplan’s technically keeping to the letter of his word.
What do you make of the recent Overwatch breaking news? Are your fingers crossed for a double hero release? Feel free to speculate as wildly as your heart desires in our comments section below.