Hammond, Overwatch's New Hero, Is Live On PTR; Abilities Revealed

Shortly after Blizzard teased Hero 28 for Overwatch and revealed his identity as a cute, chubby hamster, the company has released him on the Public Test Realm and detailed his full suite of abilities. The new hero is indeed Hammond, as suspected, though his name in-game is Wrecking Ball.

As seen in the teaser trailer, Wrecking Ball has the ability to transform into a ball and roll around to increase his movement speed, and his automatic weapons are known as Quad Cannons. Grappling Claw allows him to send out a grappling hook that lets him swing around the nearby area, which Blizzard said allows for "high-speed collisions to damage and knockback enemies."

Adaptive Shield provides shields for Wrecking Ball that increase in effectiveness depending on the number of nearby enemies. Piledriver causes Wrecking Ball to slam into the ground, dealing damage and knocking enemies up into the air. His Ultimate is Minefield, which lays out a "massive" field of mines that detonate when enemies come near to them. His backstory is detailed on Blizzard's website; you can watch his origin video below or check out some Hammond gameplay in our livestream.

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As noted above, you can try out Wrecking Ball for yourself right now if you own Overwatch on PC. A new update has been released on the PTR, which you can access through the Battle.net app's Region/Account drop-down menu. There's no word on how long the PTR will be available or when Wrecking Ball will be released in the live game on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

This PTR update also does a number of other things. There are hero updates to multiple characters, making "major changes" to damage falloff for the likes of McCree, Bastion, Mei, Soldier 76, and Widowmaker. Hanzo's new Storm Arrows see a small nerf, Assault maps now provide one less minute for each control point objective, and various bug fixes have been implemented. You can see all of these changes in the full patch notes.