The newest hero we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived in Overwatch! Echo is the 32nd hero to join the heroes of Overwatch and can now be played on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.
Echo is a multirole evolutionary robot programmed with a rapidly adapting artificial intelligence and represents the cutting edge of technology. Echo was the creation of Singaporean scientist Dr. Mina Liao, who was one of the earliest members of Overwatch. Prior to joining the organization, Dr. Liao was widely considered one of the prominent experts in robotics and artificial intelligence.
Echo was first seen in Overwatch Animated Short “Reunion” when McCree retrieved her crate from ex-gangmember Ashe. She was also part of the Overwatch 2 Cinematic “Zero Hour” where some of her abilities were revealed.
Categorized as a Damage Hero, her abilities include Tri-Shot that fires 3 shots at once in a triangle pattern, Sticky Bombs that detonates after a few seconds, and a Focusing Beam causing very high damage to targets with less than half health. She has the ability to fly though it would only last for a few seconds, but she can also glide while attacking opponents. Her Ultimate is called Duplicate which lets her duplicate a targeted enemy hero and gains use of their abilities.
We’ve played Echo in training mode and a couple of quick games and found her to be quite effective in attacking. She’s one of the two damage heroes who can attack from the sky, so it’s quite hard to deal with her. Her damage seems to be higher than other heroes and so far we’re having fun killing our opponents with her Sticky Bombs and Focusing Beam.
You can watch Echo’s Origin Story by clicking on the embedded video above.
You can watch Echo’s launch video above.
The game will now have a new Competitive Mode, Competitive Open Queue in the Arcade. Competitive Open Queue will run for roughly four weeks. This mode will use standard Competitive Play rules, including hero pools and one hero limit, but will have no role restrictions or role queues.
They’ve also implemented a unified Hero Pool, allowing both the Overwatch League and Competitive Play to mirror each other as closely as possible and making a more consistent viewing and play experience.
Here’s how it works: To determine a week’s Hero Pool, we’ll compile hero play rates from high-level Competitive Play matches from the preceding two weeks. Heroes with play rates above a certain threshold will be eligible to be removed; the higher their play rate, the more likely they are to be removed. Based on that, one Tank, two Damage, and one Support will be randomly removed from play. (Note that heroes will not be removed two weeks in a row.)
At the end of each Sunday’s Overwatch League matches, we’ll announce the Hero Pool that will be used that upcoming week for both live Competitive Play and the Overwatch League. That pool will go into effect in the game Monday morning. This process will occur every week of the Overwatch League regular season; during weeks that there are no Overwatch League matches, the same data will still be used to determine the Hero Pool and you will find out Monday morning.
To simplify the competitive experience, they no longer have rotating Map Pools. Instead, Competitive Play will include all of the maps, with the exception of Paris and Horizon Lunar Colony. They will be added back once the updates are made for these two maps. More info can be found in this blog post.
