Summary
- Lifeweaver is the newest Overwatch hero, a support class with abilities that help his team both with healing and movement.
- We can exclusively reveal his Origin Trailer, and spoke to Lead Narrative Designer Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie to find out more about this new character’s story.
- Play as Lifeweaver before unlocking him in the Battle Pass in the limited-time Arcade mode: B.O.B. and Weave.
Xbox can exclusively reveal the Origin Trailer for Lifeweaver, the newest hero coming to Overwatch 2. This new support hero will arrive as part of Season 4 on April 11, and offers some very new options to players looking to assist their team – and a brand new thread to the Overwatch storyline.
Niran ‘Bua’ PruksaManee is a Thai scientist who combines nature and technology to offer new ways to heal, move and damage, both for himself and his team. As with all of Overwatch’s heroes, he also comes with a rich backstory, which you can check out in the new trailer below:
All of Lifeweaver’s abilities stem from his background as a naturalist. Brought up wealthy in the sheltered world of Chiang Mai, Lifeweaver grew to love the natural world but, upon leaving home, he saw the devastation being wreaked on the environment outside of his home. He developed a new technology, bio-light, which uses the hard light wielded by the likes of fellow heroes Symmetra but fuses it with living plants. Refusing to let his parents or the Vishkar corporation use his technology for nefarious purposes, he fled home, determined to use his creation only for good.
To learn more about the creation of this unique new hero, we spoke to Overwatch 2’s Lead Narrative Designer Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie. He explains that, as with all of Overwatch’s heroes, Lifeweaver began life as a series of gameplay ideas that needed a story created around them:
“He was design first and, from there, the story developed. What really struck the Narrative team is we knew we were going to do a plant hero, then we had to figure out how this person has plant powers. Then we saw the early prototypes and realized it doesn’t look like plants, but more like hard light, which led to his story being developed. It really highlights how the Overwatch team develops heroes, it’s very collaborative.”
The solution was to create the idea of bio-light, a new iteration of Overwatch’s existing hard light technology – already wielded by the likes of Symmetra and Lúcio. Lifeweaver created it to heal wounds and damaged plants, and wanted it to become free to use across the world – but his invention was claimed by the Vishkar corporation, a company most closely linked to Symmetra among the existing heroes.
It means that Lifeweaver’s story offers more to learn about Symmetra by association. “She was pretty much the one person at school who he understood and who understood him,” says Jurgens-Fyhrie, “and there is a lot there to explore. We can’t share too much about what is to come, but Vishkar is an important of the story, particularly for Symmetra and Lifeweaver.”
At the time of his introduction, Lifeweaver isn’t part of the in-universe Overwatch team, but Jurgens-Fyhrie says he’s known them while living as a fugitive, and is “loosely tied” to them in the same way Torbjörn is. Jurgens-Fyhrie won’t say if his story will become a part of the upcoming PvE story for the game, but we know that, “at the time of this announcement, Lifeweaver is living in the Atlantic Arcology, trying to find a way to cure diseases and heal the world.”
You’ll be able to play as Lifeweaver before unlocking him in the Battle Pass in the limited-time Arcade mode: B.O.B. and Weave that will run from April 11 to April 24. The mode, also celebrating Thai New Year, will allow players to play only as Lifeweaver, and by participating you can earn Lifeweaver’s Cassia skin (based on the national flower of Thailand, the Ratchaphruek).
Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect that Lifeweaver can be played before earning him in the Battle Pass only in the limited-time B.O.B. and Weave mode.