'Overwatch' Theories About The Next Hero: From Spider Robots To Doomfist

There’s been a ton of buzz this week about who Overwatch’s 24th hero is going to be. There’s been crazy amounts of speculation built off of a few Twitter stories and a robot fight in Numbani. Jeff Kaplan, Overwatch game director, said on the Blizz.net forums that hero “24 is not who you think it is,” which is leading to even more fan theories. Is the next hero Doomfist, a spider robot or maybe even Winston’s sentient robot A.I. Athena?

So, here’s every fact we know so far:

Efi Oladele is an eleven-year-old girl who just happens to be a super genius. After winning the Adawe Foundation's “genius grant,” she decides to go on a trip with her parents somewhere to celebrate.

While Eli and her family were at the airport, someone or something completely wrecked a bunch of OR15’s, which are newly designed omnic protectors. We know Efi was there to see the whole thing, since the picture used in the news tweet was taken by her.

The assailant would have to have used the Doomfist gauntlet to embed an omnic in the wall like that. Even Reinhardt doesn’t have the power needed to deal that much damage and we know the Doomfist gauntlet can “ level a skycraper. ”

The Doomfist gauntlet, one of the most powerful artifacts in the Overwatch universe, was then stolen by the unnamed assailants. The PTR was updated to show the beaten robots and broken glass where the power glove used to be.

The glove was supposed to be transported in the Payload on Numbani to the museum, where it would be shown off on Unity Day, the holiday commemorating the creation of the city-state.

Now that we have all the facts, now it’s time to theory craft.

• Widowmaker might be the one trying to steal the gauntlet again. A tweet from her voice actor could mean something big for the purple sniper:

• A leak back in January on 4chan seems to point at a spider tank being the next hero. The anonymous user posted about Mei’s new Year Of The Rooster skin and her new origin story weeks before either were released. The leaker also said that Doomfist isn’t next, but instead there will be Anchora, a quadruped tank from Numbani with a West African accent. Could it be Efi?

• There’s a theory on the Overwatch subreddit by user KalebAT that is just crazy enough to be correct. He believes that Efi will create a robot body for Athena, which will be a spider tank called Anchora. Sounds a little far fetched, but if you look at all of the pieces of evidence, it starts to almost sound believable.

The Overwatch universe is filled to the brim with crazy characters with barely any backstory. There’s a giant sea serpent omnic off the coast of Korea that’s been held back with the help of thousands of pilots in D.Va mechs, an omnic struggle in Australia and a very strong gauntlet that can level a skyscraper.

Blizzard has done a tremendous creating a world that feels real, which is why it’s so disappointing that the Overwatch team has barely scratched the surface of Winston and the gang’s world.