As part of BlizzCon 2026, the Overwatch developers announced a major rework for Sombra, who will transition from the damage (DPS) role to support in Season 5. The team worked carefully on the update to preserve the hero's recognizable identity and her cybernetic hacker fantasy.
According to hero designer Scott Kennedy, in the past, the combination of high damage, ability locking, and invisibility made the hero problematic. Moving to a support role eliminates her need to quickly eliminate enemies, allowing her instead to heal allies and move freely around the battlefield incognito. At the same time, her key mechanics — translocator, invisibility, and ability locking via EMP — remain in place, although the EMP ultimate will be used less frequently.
Art director Dion Rogers and senior animator Kyle Disanjh noted that the creation process took a long time due to numerous internal playtests and the search for balance. Producer Kenny Hudson emphasized that reworking existing heroes is often harder than creating new ones from scratch, as it is important to live up to the expectations of the dedicated fan base of former Overwatch 1 heroes.
From a lore perspective, as narrative designer Eleni Rivera explained, Sombra fully retains her hacker image. In addition, such updates allow the team to deeper expand story arcs and develop character personalities, particularly their relationships and concerns regarding other heroes like Sigma.
As a reminder, Street Fighter will appear in Apex Legends on September 22 in a major crossover.
