Overwatch Devs Admit Sombra's Rework Took So Long Because They Tried "A Lot Of Things"

Published Sep 14, 2026, 11:26 AM EDT Allyson Cochran is an Editor at TheGamer who has worked as a journalist since 2020 and in games journalism since 2022. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and focuses primarily on guides, previews, and developer interviews, with particular expertise in cozy indie games and live-service FPS titles. She has interviewed numerous game directors, including those of games like Overwatch and Dead by Daylight. Allyson has written and edited thousands of guides, and she genuinely loves every minute of it. Sign in to your TheGamer account Sombra is finally getting her long-awaited rework, and Overwatch's developers have revealed why it took so long to figure out what to do with her. During a group interview I had at BlizzCon 2026, Overwatch art director Dion Rogers, lead hero producer Kenny Hudson, hero designer Scott Kennedy, narrative designer Eleni Rivera, and senior animator Kyle Disanjh discussed Sombra's upcoming transformation from DPS to Support. According to Kennedy, the team tried plenty of different ideas before finally settling on the version coming to the game in Season 5. Sombra's Rework Keeps Her Core Identity Intact "Sombra is obviously a hero that's gone through a lot of different iterations," Kennedy says. The problem, he says, was that her three major pillars - invisibility, ability lock, and damage - became particularly difficult to balance when she could excel at all three simultaneously. The solution was to move Sombra into a new role while preserving the parts of her identity that players recognize. "With this attempt, we are moving her into a support role that allows you to sort of keep the core identity of the hero," Kennedy says. That means Sombra's invisibility remains, while her ability lock continues to exist through EMP, albeit less frequently. Moving her away from DPS also means she no longer needs to be built around dealing enough damage to quickly eliminate opponents. Rogers says the team was particularly happy with how the rework preserves Sombra's identity while giving her a new purpose. "I was surprised how fun she is so far," he says. "Her fantasy remains intact while giving her this whole playstyle." Blizzard Tried "A Lot Of Things" To Get Sombra Right Disanjh also admitted that the development process involved plenty of experimentation. "There are a lot of versions that we try," he says. "We tried a lot of things." Some of those experiments made the team question whether they were actually preserving what made Sombra Sombra. Ultimately, however, the developers found that the Support direction gave them a way to retain her core fantasy without forcing all of her old strengths into the same kit. The developers compared hero reworks to creating entirely new heroes, arguing that reworks can sometimes be even more difficult because the team has to respect an existing character and their established player base. Sombra's rework is therefore more than a simple balance pass. Blizzard is using the opportunity to expand what the character can do while keeping her hacker identity intact. As someone who gets irrationally annoyed when the enemy team has a Sombra who knows what she's doing, I can finally look forward to being happy with a good Sombra on my own team instead. If I'm going to spend an entire match wondering where the heck my Sombra is, at least now there's a chance she's off somewhere healing me. Sombra and Roadhog's reworks arrive in Overwatch Season 5 on October 6. Overwatch (Formerly Overwatch 2) Released August 10, 2023 ESRB Teen / Violence, Blood, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items) Developer(s) Blizzard Publisher(s) Blizzard Genre(s) Shooter, FPS, MOBA, Multiplayer