'Overwatch': Why Doomfist Won't Be The Next hero

After the last Overwatch Private Testing Realm update, an intrepid fan discovered a small texture file in the game’s code. A crack appeared on the payload on Numbani, sprinkling broken glass all over the top of the objective. The Doomfist was inside, a powerful artifact in Overwatch’s lore that many fans believe to be the next hero coming to the game. Terry crews even auditioned to play him and everyone is dying to know more about what could possibly be the coolest addition to the shooter since its official launch last May.

Who Is Doomfist?

There are three characters in the Overwatch lore who have wielded the gauntlet before. We don’t know much about them, other then that they were called “The Savior,” “The Scourge” and “The Successor.” Winston defeated the last of the line and took the power gauntlet and put it on display. Reaper and Widowmaker tried to steal the glove in the opening cinematic, but were thwarted by the gorilla and his teleporting BFF, Tracer.

Doomfist was supposed to be a throwaway character who never really had anything to do with the story. According to an interview with PC Gamer in 2015, the developers just thought of the gauntlet as a throwaway item for the trailer. According to creative director on Overwatch, Christ Metzen: “We did not develop Doomfist to be any more important to the franchise than any other character, at all. What started to happen with Doomfist, the more we jammed on him… we kind of started thinking how fun would it be if the Doomfist character is actually more of a generational hero, like you see in some of the the big superhero universes.”

Like the Green Lantern or The Flash, Doomfist was a generational hero. Different people wielded the same gauntlet, all with different views on how to wield it. In the same interview, Metzen says that the OW team wasn’t working on making him a hero, but a lot could change in a year. Maybe Blizzard decided to follow fan expectations and create him as the tank/ bruiser/ DPS/ mage every gamer could ever want.

Doomfist Might Happen, But It’s Unlikely

The texture change on Numbani isn’t in the actual Overwatch game yet, just hiding around in its code. That means nothing new about Doomfist has been revealed in the game since beta. Fans are so desperate for a new hero that they’ll take any small sign of hope for someone new to play. Overwatch releases new heroes very rarely and the only two have been Ana and Sombra, because OW’s development team likes to take their time making something good. If a new hero came to the game every week, but was super broken and made the game less fun, would it be just as popular?

Doomfist can be the game’s next hero, but Blizzard really doesn’t like following fan’s expectations. Nobody knew anything about Sombra, other then that she was Spanish and liked to hack stuff. Then Blizzard started slowly releasing clues, leading fans on a month-long internet clue scavenger hunt. At the end of the event we learned that she hated corporations, but not much else.

I believe Doomfist won’t be Overwatch’s next hero. Nodding at memes, like the doritos near D.Va’s Halloween victory pose are one thing, but falling into fan’s demands or fan service just isn’t Blizzard’s style. Catching fans off their toes with something awesome that nobody expected will be so much cooler than Doomfist.

It would be awesome to hear Terry Crews scream catchphrases and punch people in Overwatch , but it just seems unlikely.