As part of a wider content expansion headed to Blizzard’s MOBA Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch character Zarya will be joining the existing cast of characters as a new ranged warrior class, the developer has announced today at Gamescom.
Set to be introduced as part of the online battle arena’s Machines of War update, Zarya will join fellow Overwatch character Tracer in battle, with Blizzard stating they’ll be “bringing her over almost entirely intact” in regards to how she plays in the team-based shooter.
Despite Zarya’s presence in the update though, Machines of War is by no means oriented around Overwatch. In fact, it’s largely themed around Blizzard’s popular real-time strategy StarCraft franchise; introducing an additional character, two new Battlegrounds and a whole bunch of original character skins all based on the base-building series
Braxis Holdout and Warhead junction are the two new maps coming as part of the expansion, both of which feature neat gimmicks. The former features a power struggle between the Terran and Zerg forces and several beacons that, when under your team’s control, sends a horde of Zerg towards opposing team’s base. Warhead, as the name suggests, tasks you with collecting and transporting nukes back to your base in order to launch them at your enemies.
Lastly, Alarak (of StarCraft fame) joins the fray as a melee assassin, who you can see in action in the trailer above as he goes head-to-head with Kerrigan in her Queen of Ghosts skin.
Blizzard hasn’t confirmed a release date for Heroes of the Storm‘s Machines of War update yet, but all of the new features are playable right now if you’re lucky enough to be at Gamescom.