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Overwatch recruits sinister scientist Sigma as Hero 31

Blizzard has unveiled the identity of Overwatch's newest hero, revealing Sigma as Hero 31.

Ozzie Mejia

July 22, 2019 11:00 AM

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Overwatch has spent the weekend teasing the game's next playable hero. But on Monday morning, Blizzard dispatched with the more obtuse, math-based teases and pulled back the curtain on who's next. It's a villainous old scientist out of the Netherlands named Sigma.

Here's Sigma's backstory:

The 31st Overwatch hero, Sigma is a kind and brilliant scientist who has been irreparably changed by an experiment gone wrong, gaining the ability to manipulate gravity in the process. During that tragic experiment Sigma sustained serious psychological damage, deemed a threat to humanity and locked away for years in a secret government facility. He was eventually freed by Talon and used as a living weapon.

Sigma was originally teased in a strange tweet issued out earlier this weekend, with Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan falling into a black hole. Beyond his origin story, Blizzard has yet to fully reveal what exactly Sigma can bring to the battlefield. Given his propensity for singularities, expect the other Overwatch heroes to have to compete with gravity-based attacks. Look for more information on Sigma in the days ahead.

It's been a busy couple of weeks for Overwatch. Last week, Blizzard kicked off the Summer Games 2019 event. Just days later, the publisher revealed the new Role Queue system, which will lock teams into specific 2-2-2 lineups. With Role Queue announced, several heroes have undergone some major changes, as evidenced by the ensuing PTR patch, with Brigitte receiving a bulk of the changes. Look for those PTR changes to hit all versions of Overwatch in the near future, with Role Queue becoming the norm in September.

Stay tuned to Shacknews, as we learn more about Sigma along with everybody else. For now, keep it here and keep it on the Overwatch website for more information.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?