Overwatch Leaks and Sombra Obsession

The online community has been abuzz with the release of new Overwatch leaks: an image from the Xbox Store featuring Halloween-themed loot boxes, an image (probably?) of the long-anticipated Sombra, and the Halloween issue of the Overwatch comic. However, there is some speculation around the authenticity of the Sombra image.

Sombra

Blizzard has been teasing us with Sombra for quite some time now, and to be expected, we are dying to know more about her. Lucky for us, a leaked image of what is potentially Sombra started circulating recently. It features an image of the character, a brief biography, and some information about the Halloween seasonal event.

Despite its convincing appearance, it is unclear whether this leak is real or not. The character features no distinguishing marks as Sombra, leading some fans to believe this is not her default skin. Default skin or no, Sombra or no, she has some cool looking gauntlets and a pretty neat SMG.

If we take this image to be Sombra, it tells us a few things about her.

1. She will probably be a damage based hero.
2. She will probably have lower health with higher mobility.

This is mainly because she appears to be of a small, feminine frame. Most of the tanks are big. A big character model makes sense for slow moving, high health characters. There isn’t much balance to be had in a quick, small, high health character. Even a slow, small, high health character can be a bit unbalanced. They are hard to hit, and hits don’t kill them. Think Symmetra but with 500 health.

She also clearly displays a weapon. This kind of weapon is characteristically good for high damage in close to medium range with a high rate of fire. Most tanks and supports do not have this sort of weapon, and this is also rather rare for the defense class. It is my gut feeling that she will be a new attack hero to give us a refreshing change from the current meta.

Halloween Comic

With a cover featuring Junkenstein, Witch Mercy, and Headless Horseman Reaper, this comic shows off what many people believe to be the future Halloween skins everyone has been hoping for. Within the story we also see a costumed Torbjorn, Reinhardt, McCree, Soldier 76, and Roadhog. Will these be the only new skins added? Will these even be the skins we will see? The anticipation is killing me!

A translated version of this comic is available on several sites. I read it first here: https://imgur.com/gallery/raSuK

Since the release of Overwatch Halloween Terror, we know that very few of these characters have the skins shown in this comic. However, Witch Mercy is just as lovely as her comic counterpart. Junkenstein and his Monster are also quite true to the comic, as well as Reaper’s pumpkin headed variant.

Halloween Loot Boxes

Based on the Xbox leak of Halloween loot boxes, we can assume a few things. There will be quite a lot of customizations to gain from this promotion, and more importantly, we can buy them with coins of some sort. Will these be a special currency just for this promotion? Will we finally be able to buy seasonal skins with regular currency? If so, no longer will we wallow in saltiness after getting duplicates of the same legendary skin for a character we never use, desperately hiding our wallets to keep from buying thousands of dollars of loot boxes just to get that one skin for our main.

Lastly, and most importantly, these boxes tell us that Sombra is coming… maybe. One of the candies neatly tucked into that pumpkin has the iconic Sombra skull. I’m going to try and sound as little like a conspiracy theorist as I can but… What does it mean? Will we finally get our next hero? Is Sombra to be released in time for this promotion? Will she have her own Halloween customizations?

This may sound crazy, but what if she is released in the loot boxes. Players would get limited/early access to her by finding her in loot boxes. This seems completely ridiculous and unfair in a lot of ways, but it would prevent the inevitable shut down in quick play where everyone instalocks Sombra. The rise in Sombra mains would be stemmed temporarily.

New Brawl/Game Mode

The Sombra leak provided a bit of information about the new game mode, with broken text referring to a Junkenstein-centric brawl featuring some sort of Zomnic horde: “protect the castle doors from the Zomnics and Dr. Junkenstein’s evil allies.” This mode will also have 3 difficulty modes, each with the opportunity to earn more points.

Now that we know the Halloween Brawl is in fact a thing, and is exactly as the Sombra leak described it, we can safely assume the leak is legitimate. With so much accurate information about the brawl, and a rather convincing image, it is hard to believe that this is such a quality fake.