Overwatch: did this weekend's leak give us our first look at new hero Sombra?
Overwatch's next hero may have leaked. Or maybe it's all part of the ARG?
Overwatch fans have had an exciting weekend thanks to a very interesting alleged leak.
The information pertains to Sombra, a new Overwatch hero hinted at by and even personally involved with the numerous ARGs Blizzard has run to promote the shooter and create excitement among its fanbase, and allegedly pictured above.
The original post sharing the purported leak has been deleted, leaving us with this screenshot shared by Redditor perscitia. According to those users who saw the original post before it went down, it's an image of Blizzard's intranet, complete with a link to another intranet page - suggesting this was an internal announcement.
The text of the post seems to describe what sounds like a PvE co-op mode - think Gears of War's Horde, Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, or Team Fortress 2's Mann vs Machine. According to the text in the image, Overwatch players will be able to "[p]rotect the castle doors from the Zomnics and Dr. Junkenstein's evil allies" with three difficulties to choose from, and earn more points for tougher challenges.
As for Sombra herself, it looks like she was going into rotation in a development build of Overwatch on the day of the allged announcement. She's described as "one of the world's best and most notorious hackers", who lost everything during the Omnic Crisis. She has "worked with the Los Muertos gang in Mexico" but had to go underground after gaining too much notoriety. She was then recruited by Talon.
It could all be fake of course - although it does line up with what we know. In a recent update, Blizzard hinted that a new Overwatch hero would release this year, with a second one expected in early 2017, and also said entirely new play modes are inbound. A new play mode could also be part of the Overwatch Halloween event.
Some Overwatch fans are actually a little disappointed to think the leak may be genuine, as they've really enjoyed the thematic ARG. Assuming the leak is legit, it would have been awesome if Blizzard had managed to keep the hacker mostly secret right up to her announcement.
That said, there are some suggestions the leak itself might be part of an ARG. The Redditor who originally posted the leak was called JeTe-Vois, which is French for "I see you". They also reportedly left the message "Por ultimo nos encontramos" ("at last we meet") in binary on the post.
That sounds pretty Sombra-like, but the account has since been deleted, which is unusual for an ARG. It's very much inline with what you'd want to do if there was a chance of your being caught breaking a Blizzard NDA, though.