Overwatch’s Most Radical Hero Rework in Years is Coming Soon

One of the most challenging hero reworks in Overwatch‘s 10-year history is almost here. With season 5 of Blizzard’s hero shooter, damage hero Sombra is moving to the support role as the developer attempts a radical rework that has proven somewhat controversial. Some Sombra mains aren’t thrilled about becoming a healer.

But Alec Dawson, associate game director for Overwatch, tells Polygon that the “soul” of Sombra is intact as part of her rework, and that the character’s support role “will start to click” with players once they spend some time with her.

Sombra has been one of Overwatch’s most challenging reworks

“It’s been quite a long road to rework Sombra in particular,” Dawson told Polygon in an interview at BlizzCon 2026. “It wasn’t initially something we started with— the goal wasn’t to make Sombra support.”

Instead, Dawson said, the goal was to look at her “triangle of lethality” — the hero’s damage-dealing capabilities, her invisibility, and her hacking ability — while maintaining her personality and style of play.

“Sombra, the soul of her, was really important to keep intact,” Dawson said. “There had been versions [of her rework] that were still in the DPS category that didn’t fully get there, where we were looking at sanding down some of her starkness too much. I think the version the team came up with is actually really active, really aggressive. Sombra’s not going to be in the back just healing the whole time. That’s what we really wanted to avoid. We didn’t want to [have her be] “Hey, all she does is heal now.'”

Blizzard acknowledges Sombra mains’ anxiety

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Dawson said that in her new support capacity, “she’s still going to be a threat” when Sombra comes out of her cloaked state and starts to attack an opponent.

“It’s still a big change for players,” Dawson acknowledged. “It’ll still take some time for players to get used to. They’ll be in a different role on their team and their expectations from their teammates might be different. But I think once they understand [her kit], they can play Sombra very similarly to how she’s played today in a lot of ways. It’ll start to click.”

Dawson highlighted Sombra’s new ability Hot Fix, a secondary fire ability that heals teammates for a large amount over a 12-second period, as one of her game-changing new skills that won’t require her to babysit her allies.

“If you’re a Winston or a Genji that’s about to dive in, [Hot Fix] can be very, very powerful,” he said. “So I think you’ll find Sombra is very fun to play in very coordinated environments too.

Sombra’s support rework goes live on Oct. 6 alongside another hero rework for Roadhog. As part of season 5 of Overwatch, players will get their hands on new support hero Doctrine.