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Overwatch Fans Continue To Unravel Clues About Mystery Character Sombra
In the weeks leading up to the release of Overwatch's first post-release character, Ana, fans were scouring the game for any clues they could find about her appearance, abilities, and backstory. Many had dubbed her "Sombra," since at the same time fans were finding clues, Blizzard was teasing Ana. Weeks after Ana's release, it looks like Sombra is a different character entirely, and fans are still finding and deciphering clues about who Sombra might be.
The most concrete evidence we have of Sombra's existence comes from Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan. In an interview with Kotaku, Kaplan confirmed that Sombra and Ana are not the same character, expressing some amusement at fans confusing the two. "The interesting part was we then put a tease in for Ana in Temple of Anubis," said Kaplan. "Because people were so hot on the Sombra trail, they assumed that that tease for Ana was actually Sombra." She's also hinted at in various parts of the game's Dorado map.
Blizzard has also been dropping more conspicuous hints since Tuesday. In the trailer for the Summer Games update, there were hexadecimal and base64 codes translating to phrases like "she who has the information, has the power..." In a developer livestream, Kaplan said some of the clues were "way above our heads," leading fans towards cryptic concentric circles in the sky above Dorado.
This has lead everyone from avid codebreakers like TheGameDecetives (who have chronicled the timeline of the Sombra mystery on their wiki) to a number of Reddit posters trying to figure out where the latest clue is leading them. Fans have tried breaking the "sky code" in Dorado using imagery in the Nepal map, linking directions found in the Summer Games trailer to a compass found in Volskaya Industries, and suggesting a recent change in the game's lighting might hint at Sombra's ability to turn invisible.
You can find comprehensive recaps of everything found so far on TheGameDetective's Wiki and in this helpful Reddit thread. You can check out our Test Chamber of the new Summer Games mode, Lucioball, below. You can read Dan Tack's review of Overwatch here.
[Source: Reddit via OverwatchGG]
Our Take
Blizzard creating such intricate paths to revealing new characters in Overwatch is a great way to get fans to dive into the backstory and characters of the game. It doesn't have the panache their story trailers did, but it certainly makes for an interesting distraction while we wait to play as Sombra.
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