In Overwatch 2, players will take on the roles of the world’s heroes in cooperative missions that challenge them to team up, power up, and stand together against an overwhelming outbreak of threats around the globe. Players will also battle each other in the next evolution of competitive Overwatch play, which carries forward existing players’ accomplishments and loot collections and features the current complete Overwatch roster, a new generation of heroes, new internationally recognizable maps that widen the scope of the world, a new Push map type, and more.

In the sequel’s action-packed cooperative Story Missions, players will experience the advent of a new Overwatch as Winston, Tracer, and other members of the original Overwatch join forces with a new generation of heroes. Players will take an active role in the Overwatch saga as a new global crisis unfolds through a series of intense, high-stakes four-player missions. As the story progresses, players will team up as different sets of heroes and fight to defend the world from the omnic forces of Null Sector, uncover the motives behind the robotic armies’ attacks, and come face-to-face with rising new threats around the globe.

The battle continues in Hero Missions, where the Overwatch team will be called upon to go beyond their limits as they deploy across the planet, defending cities against robot invasions, taking on elite Talon agents, and battling the villainous forces laying siege to the world. In this highly replayable mode, players can level up their favorite heroes and earn powerful customization options that supercharge their abilities in co-op play—such as altering Reinhardt’s Fire Strike to ignite nearby enemies or modifying Tracer’s Pulse Bomb to cause a devastating chain reaction—granting the extra edge they need against the overwhelming odds.

Lifeweaver is the 37th hero and will be the newest Support to join the Overwatch roster when Season 4 goes live on April 11!

Hailing from Thailand, Lifeweaver is characterized by his love and respect for nature as well as his advanced biolight technology. This groundbreaking advancement is woven throughout his abilities, and plays a pivotal role in the healing and utility aspects of his kit.

Whether he’s raising his teammates up with his Petal Platform, pulling them to safety with Life Grip, or sustaining their health with Healing Blossom—Lifeweaver is a well-rounded Support who adds massive sustainability and utility to his team.

Bringing one of the most complex playstyles to the game to date and being the first openly pansexual Overwatch hero, we can’t wait for players to experience all that Lifeweaver brings to the game when he joins the fight on April 11!

A DEEP DIVE INTO LIFEWEAVER, OVERWATCH’S NEWEST HERO

He’s witty, kind, and always looking to lift those in need—sometimes literally.

Hailing from Thailand, Lifeweaver is characterized by his love and respect for nature as well as his advanced biolight technology. This groundbreaking technology is woven throughout his abilities, and it plays a pivotal role in the healing and utility aspects of his kit.

Lifeweaver has a unique playstyle that introduces a few new mechanics into the game, so let’s take a walk through his kit and how he was developed. His final look is the result of a culmination of many different teams, including various concept art, hero design, and narrative. One of these pieces features an older physician who drew healing energy into his hands and blasted it into his allies, a bit like Moira’s Coalescence.

We ideated further based on these concepts and landed on something that offers an all-new playstyle to the game while also expanding our support class.

Healing Blossom

Healing Blossom is Lifeweaver’s first primary fire (more on that in a bit). With this weapon, he charges a luminescent flower and sends it to his allies. The longer he charges the blossom, the more healing it provides.

Healing Blossom was the starting point for this kit, and from there, we built out his other abilities. Our goal with Lifeweaver was to create an accessible support hero who is viable in many different scenarios and skill levels. Healing Blossom is soft target-based, like Brigitte’s Armor Packs, and we feel this ability enables players across the board to find value in his kit and playstyle.

Thorn Volley

His alternate primary fire is called Thorn Volley. With this weapon, he fires biolight thorns at enemies in a scattered pattern. While mainly intended as a form of defense, Lifeweaver can deal a decent amount of damage with Thorn Volley as well.

You’ll get the most value out of Lifeweaver by healing your team, but his weapon has relatively high damage for a support hero. Keep in mind, you will be unable to heal your allies while using Thorn Volley, so be aware of your surroundings and manage these two primary fires wisely!

For those playing against Lifeweaver, don’t underestimate Thorn Volley when rushing him. As Lifeweaver says: “Thorns in the face are an inconvenience.” He isn’t wrong.

Petal Platform and Rejuvenating Dash

Petal Platform is Lifeweaver’s secondary-fire ability. He throws a pod that blooms into a flower-like platform upon landing. Whether ally or enemy, anyone stepping on the platform causes it to elevate, and it will remain airborne for a certain amount of time.

Anyone using the platform can launch themselves high into the air by timing a jump right as the platform reaches maximum height. It won’t quite be as tall as Baptiste’s Exo Boots, but enemies and allies alike can use the platform for a well-timed super jump thrust into the air!

Petal Platform was the most challenging ability to lock down in development, and it was iterated many times. We landed on the platform mechanic because it adds something to the support lineup that we’ve only ever seen with Mei’s Ice Wall, adding a new verticality consideration for players beyond map design or heroes that can launch themselves into the air.

Use Petal Platform to get away from enemies, or to enable your allies. If you have a Bastion who wants to post up somewhere, Petal Platform can get him there quick! Or maybe you want to lift your ulting Cassidy with the hope of getting more Deadeye kills.

Lifeweaver is a team player who loves collaboration. There are so many ways to support and enable your team with this ability, and we’re excited to see how players use Petal Platform in creative ways!

Rejuvenating Dash lunges Lifeweaver in his traveling direction while lightly healing himself. This ability will look and feel like Hanzo’s dash, so we baked it into his kit to give him mobility and self-sustain.

A well-timed jump at the apex of his Petal Platform will launch you into the air. Pair this ability with Rejuvenating Dash to cover a fair amount of distance both horizontally and vertically.

Life Grip

Life Grip envelops an ally in protective biolight and pulls them to Lifeweaver’s position. While an ally is within Life Grip, they are invulnerable to all damage.

The inspiration for this mechanic came from many places, as we’re sure some of you have been on the unhappy end of an enemy Roadhog hook, but we wanted to ideate on a friendly pull between allies. Our challenge was to conceptualize what an ability like this would look like in Overwatch. We tried it out in our internal playtests, and the team had a lot of fun with it.

Before you ask, we’ll clear this up now: you can’t disrupt an utling ally with Life Grip!

This ability speaks to him as a protector and healer, but it also lends some insight into his personality and perspective. Lifeweaver is cool, confident, and he has the best intentions for anyone he encounters. Even though he’s doing the right thing in his mind, there can be consequences to pulling your teammate out of position. Use Life Grip (carefully!) to save teammates and enable them to stay in the fight.

Tree of Life

For his ultimate ability, Lifeweaver places a large biolight tree that pulses with healing energy. This tree provides cover for your team, meaning you can’t shoot, be shot, or pass through it. The developer responsible for the concept describes it as, “Healing Bob meets Mei’s Ice Wall.”

How a hero is developed can vary—sometimes their look and feel inspire their abilities, and sometimes it’s the other way around. In Lifeweaver’s case, his ability kit was built out before his personality, lore, and aesthetic. Tree of Life is what shaped his character into the nature-loving supporting hero you will meet in-game

Lifeweaver’s ultimate filtered through a few iterations, including a healing Earthshatter-like ability— which was super cool, but not super useful. We also tried a healing totem, but it wasn’t quite right for him.

It was around Arbor Day when his ultimate started to come together. Trees were already on the team’s mind. The original Tree of Life gave its life to allies, withering over time. It was incredibly poetic but not very intuitive or clear on the battlefield. This ability, however, morphed into the final Tree of Life that’s currently in-game.

”Look at us. We’re amazing.”

Whether you’re playing as, against, or with Lifeweaver, he brings something new and exciting to the game through his mechanics, playstyles, and perspectives. Whether he’s raising his teammates up with his Petal Platform, pulling them to safety with Life Grip, or sustaining their health with Healing Blossom—Lifeweaver is a well-rounded support who adds massive sustainability and utility to his team.

We look forward to seeing how you combine his abilities with those of other heroes, and the ways he will save teammates from the brink of death.

Lifeweaver saunters into the support line up on April 11 at the beginning of Season 4. Grab your Premium Battle Pass to unlock him instantly or try him out in the training room, custom games, and the limited-time game mode, B.O.B. and Weave.

To help realize these missions, the sequel also introduces significant engine upgrades that support larger maps for co-op (PvE) play, as well as the wide variety of new enemies and factions that players will encounter on their missions. The game also introduces visual enhancements designed to bring players’ favorite heroes—and their new looks for Overwatch 2—to life in greater detail.

Overwatch 2 also represents the beginning of a new era for the series’ world-renowned competitive 6v6 play. In addition to carrying forward all of the original game’s heroes, maps, and modes—as well as existing Overwatch players’ accomplishments and loot collections—the sequel adds multiple new playable heroes to the ever-growing roster; widens the scope of the world with even more maps and locations; and adds a new Push map type, in which two teams compete to make a robot (that happens to be pretty good at pushing things) push the map’s objective to their opponent’s side.

Overwatch 2 also renews Blizzard’s commitment to continue supporting the existing Overwatch community. Current Overwatch players will battle side-by-side with Overwatch 2 players in PvP multiplayer. In addition, current Overwatch players will be able to play Overwatch 2 heroes and maps, ensuring the core PvP experience remains dynamic and vital for today’s community in the Overwatch 2 era.

Overwatch 2 is available for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.