After months of toying the gaming community around with countdowns, timers and a frustrating ARG, Sombra reveals herself at Blizzcon 2016. Tagging along with her is an Arcade mode and the announcement of two more maps.

Sombra, whose real name is unknown (naturally), will be the 23rd Overwatch character, and the second character to be added post launch, with the first being Overwatch’s resident mother Ana. Being a hacker on the side of Overwatch’s rival team Talon, she fights alongside Reaper and Widowmaker against the real Overwatch team that consists of, at the very least, Soldier: 76 and Tracer. When she became an orphan because of the Omnic Crisis, she joined the Los Muertos gang to help overthrow the Mexican government. After years of honing her hacking skills, she became admired for her abilities, which led her to being part of Talon.

As an offensive character, Sombra has several different abilities that utilize her expertise with technology. Along with her default fully automatic machine pistol, she can hack characters to keep them from using their abilities, cloak herself with thermoptic camo, which hides her unless she attacks or is hit, and even teleport using a translocator beacon that can be thrown and used at any time, even in midair. Lastly, she can unleash an EMP, which stops enemy shields and barriers along with hacking anyone within a certain area for a short time.

Sombra will be part of Overwatch’s Public Test Region next Tuesday, but she won’t be the only thing being added. An Arcade mode and a new map will be joining her.

The new Arcade mode will act as a replacement to the previous Weekly Brawls, but not all is lost. Arcade mode features a playlist of all of the Weekly Brawls, including new ones as they are developed, as well as a new 1v1 and 3v3 mode. The 1v1 mode, Mystery Duel, pits two people against each other in a best-of-nine match where the game decides what character is next. Elimination, the 3v3 mode, is a best-of-five type where characters are locked until the next round.

Arcade Mode will also feature a No Limits mode, which is essentially Quickplay, where there are no limits as to what characters are picked and hero stacking is possible. This is because Quickplay will be changing and featuring a few restrictions, which include stacking heroes. Sorry, but your team of 5 D.Va’s and a Mercy will no longer be the bane of Quickplay.

Arcade Mode also has two added benefits. Each week, players can be guaranteed to earn a loot box every 3 wins in Arcade Mode up to 3 loot boxes. This helps keep from grinding experience simply to get a loot box. Also, because some modes like Elimination and Mystery Duel require smaller maps, special maps are in development for those modes. This includes Eco Point, Antarctica, a research facility rich in Overwatch lore where the character Mei was found frozen.

For those curious about the next full map being developed for Overwatch, it seems that we are going from the crumbling castle of Eichenwalde, Germany to a desert in the Middle East in Oasis. Not much is known about this map except that it will be a Control Map in the same vein as Ilios and Lijuang Tower.

My Opinion:

Sombra did not disappoint. After months of teasing, we finally get her reveal, and it seems her personality is of someone who has fun jerking an entire community along for months on end. I cannot wait to try her out online. I also like the idea of Arcade mode, although I do get worried about the new loot box system. Will you still get experience in the games that could lead to more loot boxes? How populated will the servers in Arcade mode be? Will teams of people be leaving Quickplay because of the limits on hero stacking? Time will tell, but I am excited for 1v1 and 3v3 matches. What are your thoughts on Sombra and her goodies?

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Shawn Richards is MONG’s Senior Editor that has been up to no good for the past few months. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.