'Overwatch' News: Changes for Hanzo Headed to PTR Soon
Jeff Kaplan, lead developer for Blizzard's "Overwatch," has confirmed on the company's official forums that they have begun to dedicate time for their artists and sound designers to work on Hanzo's new abilities.
"We're now at the point where we can schedule time for our artists and sound designers to work on Hanzo," Kaplan wrote on Blizzard's official forums. "Once they are close to done, he'll make his way to the PTR."
About a week ago, Kaplan updated the community with regard to their planned changes for certain heroes. While most of the heroes just received some simple changes such as changing the cooldown of certain abilities or altering how their primary weapon worked, Hanzo received a much more drastic change in that he would be getting new abilities altogether to replace some of his more controversial ones.
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Principal designer Geoff Goodman went into more detail regarding Hanzo's changes on the Blizzard forums. Essentially, Hanzo will get two new abilities: Lunge and Volley.
Lunge will allow Hanzo to perform a horizontal leap across any direction, somewhat similar to how Tracer's Blink functions. This will enable him to engage and disengage from fights quickly and safely as well as grant him more mobility.
Volley, on the other hand, will replace Scatter Shot and will let Hanzo basically rapid fire his bow. When activated, Hanzo will be able to fire up to six arrows in quick succession, each doing less damage than a regular arrow, but firing at a much faster rate.
Because Hanzo was getting entirely new abilities, the "Overwatch" team wanted to make sure they were satisfied with what they had before dedicating any art resources into developing them to match the style and aesthetic of the game.
With work on the assets for the new Hanzo underway, players should expect these changes to hit the game soon.
