Blizzard teased a new Overwatch hero earlier in the month, and wouldn’t you know it – it’s exactly what we thought it’d be.
After a tweet that hinted at some kind of healer with a sniper, it turns out that that’s what we’ll be getting in the form of Ana, a Support character who uses her long range weapon to heal her teammates and dish out the pain to her foes.
As for Ana’s connection to the wider Overwatch story, it transpires that she’s Phara’s mum. You can watch an origin video for her below.
Ana’s main weapon of choice is the Biotic Rifle that Blizzard previously teased. Interestingly, it’ll either restore health or deal damage depending on whether you shoot a team mate or an enemy.
That’s not all Ana has up her sleeve though – you can also expect to make use of a sleep dart that knocks your foes unconscious.
As for close-quarters brawls, Ana can use a Biotic Grenade, which has a small area of effect, but again heals or damages depending on who you hit.
The Biotic Grenade will also temporarily increase the effect of all healing your allies receive, while on the flipside, any enemies caught in the blast won’t be able to heal for a while.
Finally, Ana’s Ultimate ability is called Nano Boost. It puts a teammate of your choice into beast mode for a certain amount of time, giving them increased damage, faster movement, and a higher resistance to damage while active.
Check out Ana doing her thing in the gameplay video just below.
PC gamers can try her out right now by opening the Battle.net client. From there, head to where you select your region/account (right above the Play button), and choose “PTR: Overwatch.”
Once the PTR has installed, you can enjoy Ana. She doesn’t currently have a release date for consoles, but should be ‘coming soon’.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.