Fans now know that the game’s next hero is a huge Wrecking Ball robot, controlled by a sentient Hamster.
It was certainly a hard development to predict and caught a lot of people off guard, most of which thought the next hero would be an Ape like Winston.
Hammond has been in testing on the game’s PTR for some time, and Blizzard has now deemed the new character ready to go to live servers.
It should be noted that the official name of hero 28 is Wrecking Ball, however, since everyone likes to call it Hammond, so will we in this article.
WHEN IS HAMMOND COMING TO OVERWATCH?
A lot of new has been released on the subject of when Hammond is coming to Overwatch on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Blizzard has now confirmed that the Wrecking Ball will be rolling onto live servers later this week.
The sentient Hamster is being primed for launch on July 24, 2018, although it won’t be a full launch.
This was confirmed in a new trailer shared today by Blizzard, with Hammond featured training on a beach.
Blizzard usually keeps new characters off competitive mode so as not too upset the current season, something which is also happening with Hammond.
Providing a two-week implementation phase for Competitive makes it possible for Blizzard to launch a new balancing patch if one is needed.
So fans should expect Wrecking Ball to be added to Competitive Mode on or around, August 7, 2018.
SUMMER GAMES 2018
There’s also speculation that Hammond’s release date will coincide with the launch of the returning Summer Games event.
Wrecking Ball was revealed in a short trailer, which featured the fuzzball training on the beach.
Interestingly, the backdrop of the video appears to be the same used for last year’s Summer Games event.
This has led to speculation that the 2018 Summer Games event will launch on the same day as Hammond.
This would be slightly earlier than previous Summer Games events, which started in early August.
WHAT ARE HAMMOND’S ABILITIES?
It appears Colonel Fuzzball has been busy working on making his mech as dangerous as possible, designing a ball that transforms him from a helpless hamster into a formidable tank hero.
Wrecking Ball has two machine guns for his primary fire, with 80 ammo per clip. The damage is relatively powerful mid-range and is an excellent source of suppression fire that is not available elsewhere in the tank class.
Wrecking Ball has a fast-moving movement ability that transforms his mech into a ball that increases his movement.
He also has a grappling claw that can be attached to walls and surfaces to propel Wrecking Ball into enemies or out of danger.
Once in the air, Wrecking Ball can use his Piledriver ability to slam into the ground dealing damage and launching enemies into the air.
He also has an Adaptive Shield that will create temporary shields around Wrecking Ball, with the amount of shielding increasing based on the number of enemies in his immediate vicinity.
Wrecking Ball’s ultimate deploys a massive field of proximity mines that deal significant damage and zone out enemies from payloads or objectives.