Overwatch's five new heroes are about to be old news. The game dropped its first look at the upcoming hero 51, and a few details in the new artwork seem to be in line with expectations that she's an ally of damage hero Ashe.
Respectfully… y’all aren’t ready for this one 😮💨🔥
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) March 31, 2026
Join us Apr 8 at 9am PT for the premiere of our latest Hero Trailer as we kick off the next chapter in the Reign of Talon 💪 pic.twitter.com/1Etxn68tax
Hero 51's appearance is defined by a pretty long rifle and an even longer, pink-braided ponytail. Seriously, how does she not trip over that thing constantly? She's also accompanied by some sort of drone that appears to have a camera or lens on the front.
Even before the art was revealed, fans had started to speculate that Overwatch's season 2 hero would be Frankie, a member of Ashe's Deadlock Gang. She appeared in the Deadlock Rebels novel by Lyndsay Ely, which follows Ashe and the hero now known as Cassidy early in their outlaw careers. In the book, Frankie makes contact with the two characters by sending them a tiny fly-like drone -- perhaps a smaller version of the drone in hero 51's character art.
Frankie is also described as having curly lavender hair. In the book, it's short hair, but the story is also set a couple of decades before the present time of Overwatch, so maybe she's just been growing it out since then.
Alec Dawson, Overwatch's associate game director, said in February that the next hero would be another damage hero with a "really satisfying skill shot," which does seem to be in line with the rifle in the new artwork. While I do love a good skillshot, I also feel like the game has been struggling with damage hero releases over the past year -- particularly heroes who have the ability to quickly eliminate someone out of nowhere.
The newest damage heroes Anran and Emre didn't have this problem, but Freja and Vendetta were consistently banned after release because of their quick time to kill, combined with their ability to consistently surprise enemies. I'm hoping hero 51's skillshot is less bursty.
The game's Reign of Talon season 1 is wrapping up in the next couple of weeks. The current season kicked off the year-long storyline about Vendetta taking over Talon and also introduced five new heroes into the roster. Devs have promised another new hero each season during the storyline, and today's artwork reveal is the first glimpse we've gotten of the rest.
We'll get more details in a hero trailer on April 8.
