Overwatch 2’s new hero, Kiriko, is the support character for Genji fans

polygon.com:

Overwatch 2’s new hero — the first of three new characters that will be available when Blizzard’s sequel launches in October — is Kiriko, a support-type who blurs the line between damage dealer and healer. Kiriko will be the first character who can be earned through the free-to-play game’s battle pass.

Kiriko was developed with Overwatch2’s new 5v5 team compositions in mind, associate narrative designer Kyungseo Min said in a developer update video revealing the new ninja’s abilities. Kiriko is described as a high-mobility, single-target hybrid healer. “She is fast,” Min explained, “and she can get to your little skirmishes, which happens a lot more often in 5v5 now, so she’s super effective.”

Qiu Fang, lead concept artist on Overwatch 2, called Kiriko “a battle healer” who gets into the thick of action, jumping in and out of combat. She’s “not a sit-back-and-heal type of hero,” Fang said.

“A lot of DPS players will love her,” Min said. In a separate roundtable interview, Min noted that Kiriko’s design was heavily inspired by a popular Overwatch hero: Genji. “In fact,” Min said, “one of the starting points of this character was [asking], How can we create a support hero that DPS players [who] like Genji would enjoy playing?”

But Kiriko’s main role and function in an Overwatch 2 team is to both heal and protect her allies. Her primary ability is the Healing Ofuda, which lets her throw paper talismans imbued with healing power that home in on allies. That should make it easy to help fast-moving heroes like Genji, or flying teammates like Pharah and Mercy. Supporting that is another ability called Swift Step, which lets Kiriko teleport quickly — and through multiple walls — to close the distance to allies who require