Overwatch 2’s latest story time comic and YouTube video, titled ‘The Upper Hand’, has seemingly teased a new character that we may soon see join the roster. However, fans who have been around the Overwatch community for a while have noticed some very interesting details surrounding the character design.
In particular, this has led fans to wonder if this new individual may finally be the introduction of one of Overwatch’s earliest character concepts, Recluse. Let’s take a look at everything we know so far.
New ‘Domina’ Character Has Been Teased For OW2 & Fans Have Noted Some Interesting Details
Vendetta is the latest hero to join the Overwatch roster, aligned with Talon as the daughter of one of its ex-leaders. Following this, Overwatch 2 recently began a Talon-themed marketing campaign where social media channels and the game itself all took on a red-and-black recolor and logo redesign, featuring the new Talon wolf logo, rather than the iconic Overwatch black and orange.
Now, Overwatch 2 has released the latest lore update with the newest ‘The Upper Hand’ story. In this scene, Vendetta is seen speaking with a previously unseen character. It is very likely she is someone with high connections to Talon, or someone Vendetta is trying to bring into the organization.
What we learn from their interaction is that the woman is named Vaira Singhania (although the video description also uses the name ‘Domina’), and that she is the Vice President of Vishkar. This is particularly interesting, as Vishkar is already known to have ties to Talon through Sanjay Korpol.
As expected, Vendetta then goes on to illustrate that Vishkar is in a dangerous position – ‘one more bad incident away from an investigation’, so to speak. She then offers Vaira an opportunity for a partnership with Talon.
In exchange for her loyalty and use of their shielding technology, not just in Colosseo, but presumably for Talon, too. Vaira tells her that any successes she will claim under Vishkar, but if any failure occurs, Vendetta is to take that as her own. Vendetta agrees, and a new partnership is officially established with Vaira Singhania.
However, in the very last moments, fans were able to notice an interesting detail. Vaira seemingly has large, spider-like robotic limbs, very much similar in shape to the likes of the old beloved design concept for ‘Recluse’.
Who is Recluse in Overwatch? Explained
Recluse is an Overwatch character that was created for the original pitch meeting, back when the game was being developed under the project title ‘Prometheus’.
The design is most well-known for featuring large robotic, spider-like legs, with the concept involving the character having a beam from her mouth and being able to deploy spider bots.
Despite never having made it to the game, Recluse is one of the designs from the early days of Overwatch development that has stuck with fans. Many still wish to see characters such as this make their way into the game years later, even if they do have some pretty significant differences to the concept art from back then. With Recluse, it seems like Vaira might finally be proof that this concept is heading to the game soon, even if under a new redesign and identity.
Could This New Character Really Be Recluse?
Now, Vaira, or ‘Domina’ as the video description labels her, doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of similarities to Recluse’s original concept art, other than the spider-like legs. Could this character technically still be Recluse? Absolutely. Let’s take a look at the main reason why;
This actually wouldn’t be the first time in recent years that Overwatch 2 has revisited these early designs and then fleshed them out into redesigned, fully developed hero concepts for the game. The most notable situation as of late is with the design of Hazard.
Originally, there was a character in the same set of concept arts as Recluse titled ‘Phreak’. Well, as fans are now aware, Phreak’s original concept art was redesigned and developed into the Tank hero we now know as Hazard – and of course, his gang of misfits are called the ‘Phreaks’, paying homage to his origins.
Phreak original concept on the left, Hazard official hero art on the right:
As you can see, these designs are drastically different. Yet, they still have the core similarities and aspects intact – bright colors, punkish aesthetic, and cybernetics.
When keeping Recluse in mind, Vaira certainly shares key design aspects with her. The robotic spider arms are the glaringly obvious factor, but the shape of the shoulder-like piece matching up to the pieces of her arms that hold spider bots really does add to the case.
Furthermore, as we’ve seen, these characters rarely keep their original concept names or color palettes. It’s likely that Vaira Singhania is the character’s name, as that Domina will be her hero/villain name or alias. Will we see a ‘Domina’ joining the Overwatch 2 roster soon? Perhaps so. This does seem to follow a similar path to Hazard’s addition to the game.
However, there are also many characters that have been introduced as highly important figures to the lore/universe through stories such as these, yet never make it to the game as a playable character. Maximillion, Sanjay, and the MEKA squad are notable examples of such scenarios.
As for now, we’ll simply just have to stay put and see if any further details are revealed through the Talon takeover, or other dev reveals and community leaks.