Overwatch players who’ve been waiting for Echo to come to the live servers following the Hero’s reveal and then her time on the PTR will finally be able to play as the new character on April 14th. Blizzard announced the release date for the hero on Thursday alongside a deeper dive into its current thoughts on different competitive features like hero pools and map pools. Echo’s release will add to the game’s roster of offensive characters and will make her playable by all Overwatch players for the first time after her time on the test servers.
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The announcement about Echo’s release date was shared by Blizzard on the Overwatch forums and on social media on Thursday. Those who’ve already spent time with her on the PTR will know how to play as the Hero by the time she’s released, but expect there to be an Echo in pretty much Overwatch game on April 14th regardless since it’ll be the first time many have been able to play as Echo.
Following the flight plan.
Echo swoops into Overwatch on April 14! pic.twitter.com/BWO8W6ivDO
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) April 9, 2020
Echo’s abilities were first revealed shortly after the character herself was confirmed to be the next Hero in the game. Her kit’s loaded with some pretty powerful abilities including the powers of flight, gliding through the air, lobbing bombs at enemies, and lasering other Heroes. Her most powerful ability, her ultimate, allows Echo to duplicate an enemy Hero and gain their abilities for a short time. It also effectively grants her a second health bar since she goes back to her previous, uncopied state after the duration of the move expires.
A list of Echo’s abilities can be found below for those who haven’t been able to try the Hero out on the PTR. Heroes and other parts of Overwatch are frequently changed on the PTR before they go live for everyone to experience, so Echo’s release will likely bring a few more changes to the character based on the PTR results.
Echo Abilities
- TRI-SHOT: Echo fires 3 shots at once, in a triangle pattern.
- STICKY BOMBS: Echo fires a volley of sticky bombs that detonates after a delay.
- FLIGHT: Echo surges forward quickly, then can fly freely.
- FOCUSING BEAM: Echo channels a beam for a few seconds, dealing very high damage to targets with less than half health.
- GLIDE: Echo can glide while falling.
- DUPLICATE: Echo duplicates a targeted enemy hero and gains use of their abilities.
Echo comes to Overwatch’s live servers on April 14th.
