Blizzard Entertainment’s online hero shooter Overwatch has its share of cartoonish hero designs, including Winston the gorilla-scientist. But nothing compares to their newest hero announcement. Meet Wrecking Ball, the name for a spherical mech piloted by a super-intelligent hamster named Hammond.
Hammond’s origin is tied to Winston’s. Like Winston he was genetically altered at the Horizon Lunar Colony, and even hitched a ride when Winston escaped during the uprising. However, Hammond landed in Australia.
In the Overwatch universe, Australia is in a bit of a Mad Max scenario. Hammond transformed his escape pod into a battle mech to compete in the Scrapyard arena. Wrecking Ball was born.
Wrecking Ball is a tank hero. He operates a bit like D.VA in that he has high mobility and machine guns. The mech can transform and roll like a hamster ball, as well as swing into and out of fights using Grappling Claw. His Adaptive Shield will help him survive a frontal assault as he rolls and swings into the enemy team.
His other abilities also complement his unique movement. Wrecking ball can drop mines while rolling or swinging, and use Piledriver to slam down into foes or pull them into his mines.
Wrecking Ball is the sixth tank hero to join the roster, and the 28th hero overall.
Recently Blizzard overhauled the role system. They condensed the previous four roles into three: Tank, Damage, and Support. In a controversial move, Symmetra, previously a Support hero, was given a major overhaul and became a Damage hero.
Blizzard has also added the ability to queue as a specific role, rather than scrambling to organize a balanced team during the start of a match.
Wrecking Ball is currently available for testing on the PTR server on PC. If all goes well he should be fully available in about two weeks.
