Adding Orisa as a playable hero, Overwatch update 1.9 is now live on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Blizzard has announced. In the above trailer, you can see a bit of Orisa gameplay.
Orisa will be available in Quick Play, the Arcade (including custom games with the competitive ruleset), and Play vs. AI., but she won’t be available for Competitive Play until next week. “We want to give players some time to learn about and play Orisa before she’s placed into the crucible of Competitive Play,” Blizzard explained.
Here’s the description for Orisa:
Built from the scraps of the city’s decommissioned OR15 defense bots, Orisa is still learning how to optimally perform her function. What she lacks in experience, she makes up for in her steadfast dedication to keeping her city – and her creator, Efi – safe from harm.
Orisa is the sixth tank to join the Overwatch lineup, and much like her programming, her gameplay is engineered around protection. Her main weapon is a rapid-fire Fusion Driver, an automatic gun with good range and accuracy even at a distance—though it comes at a cost. Orisa’s movement slows down while she fires and players will need to plan for a lengthy reload time. Her alternate fire, Halt!, launches a graviton charge across the map, slowing nearby enemies as it passes, then pulling them toward it when it detonates.
Her Fortify ability boosts her personal defense, reducing damage taken and making her unstoppable for a short time. She can throw a device that creates a curved, stationary Protective Barrier, perfect for intercepting projectiles and shielding teammates from the front, sides, and above. Lastly, as her ultimate ability, Orisa deploys a high-powered Supercharger that beams a buff to allies within its range, increasing the damage they can inflict on the opposing team
And here’s a look at the patch notes for today’s update:
General Updates
Competitive Play
- On Route 66, the attacking team is now given 60 additional seconds after pushing the payload to the first checkpoint.
Custom Game and Game Browser
- When setting up a Custom Game, players can now disable or modify abilities activated with the secondary fire button
Hero Updates
Ana
- Biotic Rifle – Damage decreased from 80 to 60
Bastion
- Ironclad – [XB1, PS4] Bastion now takes 20% less damage while in Configuration: Sentry or Tank (formerly 35%)
Junkrat
- Total Mayhem – Junkrat’s explosion no longer hurt himself
Mercy
- Caduceus Staff – The amount of increased damage that’s done when boosting another player is now tracked under the match statistics and on the Career Profile page
Sombra
- Hack – Sombra’s teammates can now see hacked healthpacks through walls
- Stealth – Sound effects and VO distance has been reduced to 15 meters when Sombra enters or exits Stealth
- Translocator – Cooldown reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds
Winston
- Barrier Projector – Ability cooldown now starts when the barrier is placed, instead of when it ends
Zarya
- Particle Barrier – No longer protects Zarya from knockback
- Projected Barrier – No longer protects allies from knockback
Zenyatta
- Orb of Destruction – Alternate fire cooldown has been reduced from 1 seconds to 0.6 seconds. Weapon spread has been removed
Bug Fixes
General
- When Teleporters, Shield Generators, and other player-owned objects are destroyed, the kill feed now properly displays the owner’s name
AI
- Fixed a bug preventing Bastion and Torbjörn bots from taking a defensive position when turret abilities were disabled in Custom Games
Competitive
- Fixed a visual bug that prevented your current medals from being displayed in the setup phase between rounds
Custom Game and Game Browser
- Fixed a bug causing players to respawn in the enemy spawn room after being pinned against a car by an enemy Reinhardt on Oasis
- A scoring requirement clarification has been added to the Capture the Flag settings, stating that each team’s flag will need to be secured before they can score
- Fixed a bug that could cause certain settings to be displayed on the Custom Game’s information screen even when they weren’t being used
- Fixed an issue preventing values from the “Ultimate Generation” setting from being correctly displayed
- Heroes and maps are now sorted alphabetically under the “Find Game” filters in the Game Browser
- Fixed a bug preventing Bastion’s Self-Repair ability from being disabled in the Custom Game settings
Heroes
- Fixed an issue preventing Bastion’s walking animation from being triggered while Self-Repair was in use
- McCree no longer receives credit toward his on-fire meter when his Flashbang is used against Mei’s Ice Wall
- Fixed a bug that kept a successful Roadhog hook from counting towards the “Match Players Hooked” statistic when the enemy player was killed on impact
- Fixed an issue causing Zenyatta’s feet to clip through his robe while his Sanzang skin was equipped
- Fixed a bug causing Reaper’s shotguns and D.Va’s mech to appear unusually large on the main menu
Maps
- Training bots that are destroyed in the Practice Range are now displayed in the kill feed
- Fixed a bug allowing more than one player to enter the Practice Range
Will you be playing as Orisa today?
[Source: Battle.net (1), (2), Play Overwatch]
10 Great Heroines
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Great Gaming Heroines
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Aloy
Horizon Zero Dawn may have just recently released, but protagonist Aloy has already captured the hearts of gamers. She's shown as an incredibly strong character, one that searches for the truth, even if she may not like the answers she finds. Guerrilla Games haven't shown a knack for creating great characters in the past, but they really did a great job making Aloy into a character with considerable depth.
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Bayonetta
While the titular star of Bayonetta hasn't had the best experiences on PlayStation (the PS3 received a sub-par port of the original, and the superior sequel is a Wii U exclusive), there's no denying that the Umbran Witch is an awesome character. She shows incredible skills while battling angels, and always oozes cool despite finding herself in some rather crazy circumstances. It's great to see a power trip from a female perspective, as heroes like Dante and Kratos have ruled the action realm for too long.
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Chie Satonaka
Persona 4 has a bunch of awesome heroines in its cast, but Chie is the real star. She demonstrates that it's perfectly fine for a girl to not have feminine hobbies, as she's obsessed with kung-fu flicks. From beginning to end, Chie proves herself to be a fantastic friend and role model.
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Clementine
Players have had the pleasure of seeing Clementine grow up during the span of Telltale's The Walking Dead. While she may have been a helpless child when the walker invasion hit, she has grown into a certifiable badass since then. She's had an incredible character arc, one that seems to be finally coming to an end in the latest series.
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Ellie
The Last of Us did an amazing job creating memorable characters, and nobody who played the game could come out of it disliking Ellie. From her struggles with survivor's guilt to having to keep Joel alive during the Winter, players got to see Ellie truly come to age by the end of the game. Her adventure will continue in The Last of Us Part Two, and it'll be exciting to see how she's changed since the first game.
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Jade
While Beyond Good & Evil's sequel may never see the light of day, the main character Jade has already made an impact. An investigative journalist, Jade is shown as being a real character, not just eye candy for players. She's a tough, intelligent woman that works to better her world by exposing a corrupt government.
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Jill Valentine
Jill Valentine has been the kick-ass star of the Resident Evil series since the very beginning. The talented special agent has battled various sorts of zombies over the last 20 years. Staying relevant for that long is an incredible achievement, and it shows just how likable Jill is.
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Lara Croft
While Lara Croft hasn't always been a great character, Crystal Dynamics has done a great job of making her matter in their recent games, including Rise of the Tomb Raider. Lara is an adventurous archaeologist following in the footsteps of her father. Her beauty is no longer the core of her character, as Crystal Dynamics have fleshed out her backstory and personality.
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Mae
The star of Night in the Woods is one of the most relatable characters in gaming due to her many mistakes. Mae is far from perfect, but is a work-in-progress that is trying to get her life together with some help from her friends. She doesn't have all the answers, but her desire to do what's right is truly inspirational (even if she does like to commit some crimes with Gregg).
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Max Caulfield
Few characters have a story arc as dramatic as Max Caulfield, but Life is Strange presents a stellar story. Max is immediately likable, and her power to time travel sets up many moral dilemmas for the young hero. She ultimately has to decide what is important to her, and it provides for one of the most heart wrenching scenes in all of gaming.
