Overwatch 2 tank hero release date, character speculations, and more

Blizzard recently announced that they would be revealing the new Overwatch 2 tank hero during the Grand Finals of the Overwatch League, which is scheduled for November 4, 2022.

It's been almost a month since Overwatch 2 went live. The game was plagued with issues at launch, and the community wasn't too happy with it initially. However, the developers have worked tirelessly to fix the bugs and glitches, and they've even offered free rewards to players to compensate for the buggy launch. From free skins to double XP weekends, the developers have done their best to placate the gaming community.

---

When will the new Overwatch 2 tank hero go live in the game?

There were a few small instances that gave the community some insight into the new hero before Blizzard even talked about the new hero reveal. The first instance took place during an OWL broadcast when Aaron Keller, the Game Director for Overwatch 2, accidentally revealed that the character would be male.

Alec Dawson, the Lead Hero designer for the game, also mentioned in one of his tweets that the goal with the new hero would be to diversify the playstyle for tanks and find new spaces for the role in general. Keeping these two factors in mind, there are only a handful of characters in the Overwatch Lore that fit the bill.

The very first character to fit this bill would be Mauga, a character that has only been seen in short stories and comics related to Overwatch so far. Although there are other candidates like Null Sector and Omnic who are also potential candidates, a popular Overwatch 2 leaker on Reddit u/OW2leaks4u claimed that the next character to arrive in the game would indeed be Mauga.

Although the leak does need to be taken with a pinch of salt, the leaker who made this statement has rarely been wrong in the past, so there's a very high chance that he's right this time around.

Interestingly enough, Mauga would be a very nice character to play in Overwatch 2. If his skill set is based on his character description, players will be able to switch between a defensive and offensive mode (a light and dark side), quite similar to Bastion.

When it comes to playstyle, Mauga could very well be a DPS tank, but most tanks in the game have a high DPS rating anyway. His description also mentions that if he were to stay in his dark side for too long, he'd probably succumb to it. This could mean that Mauga may not be able to return to his defensive mode if he uses his offensive mode for too long.

As for the release date, it's hard to make a guess. There's a high chance that this new hero could go live in the new season. New heroes are usually linked to the Season Pass, so releasing him as a part of the new season makes the most sense. Players will either have to grind the free track to unlock Mauga or purchase the Overwatch 2 Season Pass to unlock him early. Overwatch 2 Season 2 goes live on December 6, 2022.