Is Mauga Overwatch 2’s Newest Hero?

During the Overwatch League Grand Finals tonight, on November 4, 2022, the Overwatch team will be teasing the latest hero to join the roster of heroes in Overwatch 2.

This new hero is guaranteed to be a tank, which will hopefully shake up the cemented meta at the pro level and beyond. But many players have already placed their bets on who the newest tank might be.

Who is Overwatch 2’s Newest Hero?

In early October, the Overwatch 2 Game Director Aaron Keller revealed a few details about who this tank might be, expressing that the player base will love him. While the gender reveal was more of a slip of the tongue on a live broadcast, it narrowed down the options. Keller further stated, “It’s someone that players have seen before.”

These two details significantly reduce the pool of who the new tank hero might be, and many have come to the conclusion that we can expect to see Mauga at the OWL Grand Finals. And the case for Mauga is compelling.

Much of what we know about Mauga is drawn from Baptiste’s short, What You Left Behind, a story included in Overwatch’s Short Story Collection. Beyond revealing Mauga’s relationship with Baptiste, these short stories show Mauga as tall and muscular, and he self-describes as being a “big dumb brute”. Though this assertion is more cunning on Mauga’s part than not, as he’s very intelligent.

Further cementing Mauga’s role as tank is his statement to Baptiste when they first met, “With you at my back, we can do anything. You’re the best medic in Talon. You keep me alive, and I’ll protect you. No one stands a chance.”

Baptiste and Mauga have a complex relationship, and though Mauga has a side that Baptiste once noted was, “like a demon”, it’s clear that Baptiste has a soft spot for the Talon operative. This seems to go both ways, as when Baptiste fled from Talon, Mauga was the one to find him. But rather than stop Baptiste or tell his superiors where he’d gone, Mauga lied to Talon in order to ensure Baptiste’s safe escape.

If this compelling backstory wasn’t enough to show that the Overwatch team has obvious intentions to bring Mauga into the fold, in the Sigma Gameplay Reveal with Seagull and Jeff Kaplan, Jeff Kaplan explained that Mauga was originally intended to be Hero 31. But the development team felt his kit didn’t fit Mauga’s personality, and instead made an entirely new hero to fit it instead, who we have now as Sigma.

Jeff Kaplan went on to say that they’d return to Mauga someday and that they still had, “big plans” for him. Looks like that day has come, three years later.