New ‘Overwatch’ hero to be unveiled at the SDCC 2016 as dev reveals new skill rating and leave policies

Following the teaser from Blizzard of a new weapon and fan speculation that came right after, Blizzard has now indirectly teased that a new hero will be introduced.

“Overwatch” fans best keep their eyes peeled for San Diego Comic-Con, as the developer has listed its own panel. The title says it all, “Behind the Scenes of Overwatch’s Newest Hero.”

According to IGN, the panel will see Blizzard’s James Waugh, Michael Chu and Arnold Tsang. They will be showcasing some snippets of the creative process that went on in the development of the newest hero.

Considering the timing of the announcement as well as the teaser for the new weapon that seemed to have some connection with the ever-teased hero Sombra, it is possible that she will be the new hero. Blizzard has just been coy about what they revealed in the panel description, so it’s not likely that the info will be leaked before the actual event.

In the meantime, Blizzard detailed a new change that will be executed on the PC, PS4 and Xbox One platforms. The main change is concerned with the leaves or disconnections in the game and its supposed effect on the player’s stats and ratings.

Over at the official Battle.net forums, Blizzard has confirmed that leaving mid-match will not affect the way that Skill Rating will be adjusted at the end of the match. Since this is already a follow-up change-implementation, Blizzard has acknowledged that fans were still not finding the improvements to work in Competitive Play.

In fact, more players who tend to exhibit bad leaver behavior are incentivised. What happens now is that the game no longer recalculates winning probability whenever there are leavers in the match.

“This means that your Skill Rating will always be adjusted based on your team’s odds at the beginning of the match, even if there are leavers on your or the enemy’s team,” said the developer in the forums. There are two things that Blizzard aims to attain with this. These are to ensure that players who do stay and finish will have better chance and to remove the incentive for those who tend to troll the winning team with leavers.

Fans who will be attending the San Diego Comic-Con should ready themselves for quite the reveal. The event will be held from July 21 to 24, with a preview night on July 20.