The weeks of teasing and hype have finally come to a close as Overwatch recently published a developer update, revealing the identity of Hero 27. It’s none other than Torbjorn’s daughter, Brigitte. This, of course, comes as no real surprise to several fans who’ve been following Blizzard’s little teases for a while. It’s fairly reasonable to say that the Overwatch team really is about as subtle as a car crash. The teases they revealed in the last couple weeks, leading up to the release, were especially telling. Both of them featured blueprints that very blatantly suggested Brigitte’s involvement. Especially to those who follow Overwatch lore very closely. Furthermore, Jeff Kaplan previously hinted that the new character would be “someone we’ve seen before.” The subsequent hints basically confirmed it immediately.
That said, Brigitte did surprise people in a handful of ways. Most notably, she’s another support hero. Though not in the sense that most people typically associate with the word. “Support,” tends to be misconstrued as simply “the heroes who heal.” However, as the pros define it, Support is more a case of characters who provide utility to the game. It just happens that the majority of the characters in the actual support category have healing as their primary feature. But one could also count other heroes not actually in the support category as a support demi-support heroes. Most famously, Sombra fit this bill prior to her recent changes. Though she does still possess the capability.
Brigitte does provide healing, but it’s clear that her main focus is on something else entirely – fortifying the backline. Brigette is essentially there to hard stop flankers by way of having a number of easy-to-land stun/CC abilities. Your Overwatch jokes that most of the new heroes seem to exist almost exclusively to “punch Genji in the face.” And given the difficulties Genji has with almost every hero added to the game since its release, it’s amusingly accurate. Brigitte also lends another fairly unique twist to the game, however. She’s something of a Tank/Support hybrid, which is something many have been asking for.
One of the most griped-about things within the game is the inability for support-mains to stay alive when Tracer and Genji basically never leave the meta. Especially since so few methods really exist to stop the former from just having all that space in the backline. Brigitte serves as a soft answer to this. But will this be “meta changing” the way she was described to be? Yes and not. Probably not to the extent that people were expecting. Brigitte won’t likely be “the death of dive comp” (unfortunately). She has her fair share of weaknesses (such as a complete inability to be effective on a range-based team). But she will create an obstacle that dive and mobility comps will have to be wary of.
Where will she fit in the meta? The pros have to figure that one out. Overwatch League is still going strong, after all. For the time being, Brigitte is available in the Overwatch PTR on PC. But console players will have to wait until the full release to try her out. It won’t be long. “Coming soon” tends to mean “within a week,” once they reveal the new heroes. And with the Year of the Dog event ending soon, it’s likely she’ll be included in the next update.
