Overwatch's 27th hero is Torbjörn’s daughter, Brigitte
When all you have is a hammer...
We've had it teased on and off for the past few days, but it's officially confirmed now: Brigitte Lindholm, Torbjörn's eldest daughter, is going to be taking up flail and shield and wading out onto the increasingly crowded Overwatch front lines.
Within, we've got her official origin story, giving us a look at exactly who Brigitte is as a person, followed up by a developer update featuring director Jeff Kaplan detailing what exactly, she'll be doing in the field.
We first saw her in Reinhardt's backstory video, listening to the old rocket-knight's tall tales. It turns out that she's officially his squire, there to patch up his armor (and his frequently bludgeoned body) after battles. Now she's decided to get on the battlefield to prevent some of those blows from landing in the first place, even if that does mean caving in a few heads with a bloody great rocket-boosted weapon.
You can see a little bit more of her backstory in this little bit from Blizzard's lore archives. Apparently after saving Torbjorn's life from the attack that took his arm, Reinhardt was promised the opportunity to name his short Swedish friend's next kid, as well as being named godfather, so she's very close to both of the beardy old gits, and has picked up both her dad's knack for bashing things with a wrench to fix them, and Reinhardt's love of breaking things with a hammer.
Mechanically, she's a heavyweight support character, armed with a rocket-boosted flail and clad in armor similar to Reinhardt, although without the full-sized projection shield. Her flail extends outwards a bit while swinging, giving it more range than it might initially appear to have, and she has a special attack called Whip Shot which launches it out further still, knocking back enemies and doing extra damage.
She's also kitted out with a big energy shield like her big buddy Reinhardt, but it's less of a team-support wall and more of a personal defensive tool so that she can soak up a bit more hurt while saving someone else's bacon using her Repair Pack, a ranged, semi-homing healing ability that can temporarily over-heal to a degree. If push comes to shove, she can shove back just as hard though - the shield comes with a Shield Bash skill that lunges in quickly, stunning whoever it hits, ideal to intercept light, harassing characters.
Her defining perk sounds like it lies in her very presence. Her passive Inspire ability is, in effect, a healing-over-time aura that activates whenever she's out bashing heads on the front line. Her ultimate skill, Rally sounds the charge (blaring Germanic horns and all) and gives all nearby allies extra armor, and buffs Brigitte herself with increased movement speed, letting her rush in to bash even more heads. Her role, then, is very much the D&D Paladin, leading from the front, and potentially acting as the glue between an otherwise aggressive team and the Reinhardt that's meant to be protecting them.
Brigitte's official profile page is up on the Overwatch site now. The game also received a small patch today, buffing Doomfist, Mei and Sombra a little each, and tweaking the health pack placement in the new Blizzard World map. You can see the patch notes here.