Overwatch 2’s next heroes might’ve just been teased in upcoming novel, fans believe

Overwatch fans who are starving for lore are getting some pretty sweet treats later this year when Blizzard releases two new novels. The covers of the books have spurred conversation around the characters on the cover, and many think that the newest hero might have been teased on one of them.

The novels won’t release until later this year, but one of the novels, Overwatch: Declassified, has a cover already and may have teased one of the new heroes coming to the game. Overwatch 2: Heroes Ascendant: An Overwatch Story Collection seems to focus on existing characters and has no cover, but fans will get a lot of lore about several key characters, including Ashe, Hanzo, Symmetra, Ana, and Soldier 76.

As soon as the listing for the story collection book was first noticed, fans started speculating about which characters from the book’s lore would make it into the game. Two particular stories they’re honing in on are Hanzo’s and Symmetra’s, both of which mention an unnamed character. Hanzo and his father were mentioned, and Symmetra and “an old friend” were also mentioned, leading players to believe that these characters could be coming into the game around the time the books are released.

Fans are using the lore books’ release date as a guide for an Overwatch 2 PvE release schedule

There’s still currently no concrete release schedule for any PvE content at time of writing. Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller has said that players will get the content in 2023 but has yet to reveal exactly when or how they are getting that content.

The first book to release will be Overwatch: Declassified, which is scheduled to come out on July 28 in Canada and Nov. 7 in the U.S. It’s possible the date for the U.S. release also gets moved up, but for now, fans are expecting to get news about PvE soon if the July 28 date sticks for Canada.

Fans will not know for sure if this means anything until Blizzard comes out with a concrete schedule for PvE content. But so far, nothing has been detailed about the 2023 content schedule for PvE, meaning fans are left to wait and speculate about the launch date of some novels to give them any inkling of when they can start experiencing the new game mode.