Check out Sojourn's devastating railgun in Overwatch 2
Tracer mains, be afraid.
Even though Overwatch 2 is still at least a year away, the folks at Blizzard sure had a lot to say about it at Blizzcon 2021. One of the best moments of the Overwatch 2 behind-the-scenes talk was our first good look at the game's standout new hero: Sojourn.
We picked up from the 2019 announcement that she might have some explosive abilities and a weapon that resembled Soldier 76's assault rifle, but we now have a much better idea of how it works. Turns out, her secondary fire is a precision-shot railgun. Based on the glimpse we saw of it in action, Sojourn can quickly rip apart squishy heroes if she lands her shots. Check it out:
Yikes, I would not want to be on the business end of that thing. Like any railgun that wants to sell that extra 'oomf,' Sojourn's secondary appears to charge up each shot before firing. You also won't need to guess when it's at max charge—a handy numbered power level indicates how powerful your next shot will be, similar to Widowmaker's scoped rifle.
I'm guessing the railgun is a more situational alternate fire for the weapon, which would make this full-auto mode its main operation. This looks like classic full-auto bullet-dumping, though its reticle and spread pattern are closer to a machinegun (think Orisa or Sombra) than Soldier's methodical fire rate.
And that's just about all we learned about Sojourn from the showcase video, besides the fact that she's good friends with Winston apparently. Awwwww.
Her other abilities are still somewhat of a mystery, but we know that she can put that mechanical arm to good use as some sort of backup gun or possibly a grenade launcher. The icons for her abilities seen in the gameplay clips do suggest some sort of explosion, but could also be an AoE field.
Unfortunately, that may be all we see from Sojourn and Overwatch 2 as a whole for a while. Activision-Blizzard recently announced that the game wouldn't be releasing in 2021. Hopefully, our speculations will be clarified by this time next year.
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Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.