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A week after Overwatch 2 streamer John "Wanted" Lin accidentally leaked Kiriko in a livestream, a trailer for the upcoming hero has been revealed. The Xbox Toyko Game Show 2022 livestream showed off the Overwatch 2 Kiriko official gameplay trailer. Kiriko is a support hero who trained with Shimada brothers Hanzo and Genji and can also climb walls like them. Kiriko can heal her team while also giving them speed boosts, invulnerability, and a debuff cleanse. Kiriko was also seen in the Overwatch 2 Season 1 trailer released a little while back. Kiriko will be a free instant unlock for all Overwatch 1 players, however, Overwatch 2 players will need to grind the battlepass to unlock her.
All of Kiriko’ abilities in Overwatch 2
Healing Ofuda
This is Kiriko’s primary fire ability. This targeted ability lets you throw ofuda-paper talismans that heal allies. These are slow moving projectiles that can be thrown. Kiriko can be seen throwing two types of Ofuda in the gameplay trailer; the golden kind which heals and a cyan kind which looks like a speed boost.
Kunai
Kiriko’s secondary fire lets her throw kunai at enemies to deal damage.
Swift Step
This ability allows her to target teleport to an ally. She can even teleport through walls to help save her allies who are cut off or even make a quick getaway.
Protection Suzu
Kiriko can throw the Protection Suzu on the ground or on her allies to grant them immortality for a short amount of time and cleanse all debuffs.
Overwatch developers confirmed that Protection Suzu also removes ultimate effects like Reinhardt’s Earthshatter and Sombra’s EMP and normal debuffs like Ana’s Sleep Dart.
Kitsune Rush
Kiriko’s ultimate ability is called Kitsune Rush and lets her unleash an astral fox which cuts a path and gives teammates increased movement speed, attack speed, and reload speed along with cooldown reduction.
Wall Climb (Passive)
Kiriko can also climb walls like Hanzo and Genji.
Kiriko’s kit is likely to make her an extremely overpowered hero. With abilities like Protection Suzu basically negating some of the most powerful abilities in the game and Kitsune Rush granting an entire catalogue of buffs, the developers will likely have to give her some major weaknesses like high cooldowns or low base stats to keep her balanced.
Overwatch 2 will get 'early access' with the PvP mode set to launch on 4th October 2022 and PvE coming out in 2023. Blizzard will be debuting Overwatch 2 with one hero in each category, Sojourn as a Damage class hero, Junker Queen as a Tank hero and Kiriko as a healer. It has been a while since Overwatch got a new support hero, the last one being Baptiste in February 2019. Check out the Overwatch 2 Season 1 trailer down below:
