While the new tank hero Mauga was the headliner of Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 showing at Blizzcon this weekend, the dev team also highlighted two more playable characters coming to the hero shooter next year: a DPS character named Venture and a support hero code named Space Ranger. If you only watched the opening ceremony, you might’ve missed some early footage of Venture’s kit in action, as well as confirmation that they are Overwatch 2’s first non-binary hero.
Blizzard showed Venture in action during its Overwatch 2: What’s Next panel on Saturday, November 4. Their drill-like gun allows them to dig underneath the battlefield and deal damage when they rise from the ground. They’re also invulnerable while digging, which already has my mind racing to all the ults they might be able to avoid by burrowing underground. It’s not quite as far-reaching as Baptiste’s Immortality Field, which can cover multiple heroes in safety at once, but Venture will at least be able to save themself from a stray D.Va bomb or Reaper Death Blossom.
Venture’s primary weapon fires a controlled explosive, which detonates upon impact rather than ricocheting like Sigma’s. They have a dash ability for some mobility, but Blizzard didn’t reveal details about their ultimate, so we’ll have to wait a bit to see what happens when they press Q.
We also learned a few details about their backstory. They’re the second Canadian hero after Sojourn (though Pharah is half-Canadian on her father’s side) and are an archeologist, thus the drill. They’re also the first non-binary hero to join the Overwatch 2 roster and use they/them pronouns.
Blizzard’s inclusion of queer heroes is becoming more common, as demonstrated by Venture and Lifeweaver being confirmed as non-binary and pansexual respectively. This had been a point of contention for some queer fans, as Tracer and Soldier: 76 were both revealed to be gay long after the original Overwatch launched in 2016.
The studio did this again during the game’s first Pride event earlier this year, confirming Pharah is a lesbian and Baptiste is bisexual in a short story. I’m more willing to forgive it because it feels like trying to set a more inclusive foundation for the series moving forward. At any rate, it’s good to see Blizzard getting ahead of this instead of filling it in retroactively. When Venture joins the game properly in 2024 as the 40th hero, there will be six confirmed queer characters on the roster.
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