Overwatch hero 27 in the spotlight as the teasing begins
UPDATE: Schematic of shield and... jetpack cat tweeted.
UPDATE 28TH FEBRUARY 9AM GMT: Another day, another tease, and it's more schematics for equipment. This time there's a design for a shield which looks a lot like Reinhardt's - check the lion's head in the centre - only smaller, given the measurements supplied and the words "kompakt!!" scribbled next to it. The similarities to Reinhardt's shield reinforce this being Brigitte, as she not only makes and mends his equipment, she's very close to him - him being a godfather figure to her.
If we assume Brigitte does use this shield, and she also uses the flail with a chain seen yesterday, then she will end up being quite similar to Diablo 3's Crusader class. Someone has even handily plonked her head on a Crusader's body.
Excitingly, though, Brigitte may also have a companion - a cat companion. And possibly with a jetpack.
Look again at the left-hand side of the picture. We can partially see a design of what appears to be a tail emerging from underneath a jetpack booster. The picture also shows the ginger tail and paw of a cat, and doodle of a cat's smiling face next to a question mark, and an arrow pointing to the central lion's head on the shield. In yesterday's picture we saw the same ginger paw swiping at a toy rat. In other words, the cat teases are strong with this one, which begs the question, is Brigitte going to have a cat companion?
UPDATE 27TH FEBRUARY 9.30AM GMT: Overnight, Blizzard - appropriate name given the state of UK weather - tweeted another picture, this time showing the paper design of what appears to be a giant hammer, or flail.
Its identification as a flail comes from an English translation of the Swedish word heading the paper: Slaga (via Reddit). Specifically, it could be a flail with a chain, which is what "slaga med kedja" means translated into English. There's mention of a microcombuster so perhaps the head has boosters to fire it off - like Reinhardt's hammer.
Why Swedish? Why the link to Reinhardt? Brigitte, Torbjorn's daughter and Reinhardt's engineer-in-chief.
UPDATE 26TH FEBRUARY 3PM GMT: Another theory (via RPS), spun out of the letter written by game character Torbjorn (linked below), wonders if the 27th Overwatch hero could be Brigitte Lindholm - Torbjorn's daughter. She is the focus of his letter. You've seen her before working with Reinhardt, probably her godfather - and probably also the person who named her - in both the Reinhardt comic and recent animated short. It would certainly tally with Jeff Kaplan telling the community it had seen the 27th hero somewhere before.
ORIGINAL STORY 26TH FEBRUARY 11AM GMT: It was this time last year Blizzard began teasing Overwatch hero Orisa, and the tease-mobile is in action once again. We presume we're building up to the reveal of Overwatch hero 27 (which tallies with Blizzard saying it was "well along the path on hero 27" at the turn of the year) and we could know their identity officially by the end of next week if Blizzard is sticking to a similar timeline to Orisa's unveiling from 2017.
What we've had so far is an official Overwatch tweet containing a report written by character Ana about an old Overwatch mission where the gang were ambushed and Torbjorn lost his arm. We also had a follow-up letter by Torbjorn to his wife, but it's Ana's report people are talking about.
They're talking about a name contained within it - the name Emre Sarioglu. Emre is Turkish male name, and Sarioglu was on the Overwatch mission to Istanbul in Turkey alongside Reinhardt, Torbjorn and Ana. Sarioglu was a Private First Class, which is a fairly low rank.
And... that's it. There's no explanation for who Sarioglu is, and he hasn't popped up in Overwatch lore before - a conspicuous absence, given the way Overwatch lore tends to be scrutinised by the game's community. Sarioglu's inclusion in the brief report, therefore, is significant - but is he the new hero?
Not necessarily. Sarioglu could be a stepping stone to the new hero in the same way Efi Oladele was to Orisa, as Orisa's creator. It was Oladele that Blizzard introduced before her creation was revealed a week later, although Sarioglu isn't singled out as an inventor or technician of any kind. Sarioglu could, however, be the parent of a new hero, the mission he's mentioned in having occurred around 26 years in Overwatch's past. We shall see.
The role hero 27 will play in the game could be meta-changing, according to suggestions Blizzard has made in the past. Then again, Blizzard probably thought similar about each of the other heroes before they showed up. There have been whispers of a tank-healer, a multi-class. These whispers and others are discussed by Overwatch lore-follower Hammeh in the embedded video.