Looks like we have nailed down the release date for Overwatch Sombra. After a long wait Overwatch Sombra was finally released in Overwatch PTR. At this point, we don’t know if its because she isn’t balanced or simply because blizzard want to release her after a week. Either way, we cannot wait for the release and the end of the ARG.
Overwatch Sombra Released Date expected for next week
The fact that Blizzard hyped her so much has set an unrealistic standard. If you think about it. All the characters in Overwatch are already epic, and that’s what the community would have expected without all the suspense, a hero equally as epic. Because of all this hype, they expect someone better than all of the other Heros.
ARGs are supposed to give a constant trickle of information. It’s not supposed to be “info dump and wait 3 weeks” over and over. We think the community is just too quick to solve it which is why it’s like this. Most encrypted messages get solved within minutes of being found. Maybe Blizzard expected it to take longer to solve so they had to put up a countdown to delay it for Blizzcon.
If a small, unproven company misses a launch window or engages in a marketing campaign that results in more frustration and fatigue than excitement, that would be a greater cause for concern to us as a customer or potential customer. Small companies can’t absorb failures as easily as large ones, and their reputation is (rightly) at greater risk of being defined by their failures than a company with a well-established record like Blizzard.
Although we’d say that Blizzard definitely mismanaged the ARG and the marketing surrounding Sombra. And we certainly understand why many people are upset, to us the problem seems pretty isolated and does basically nothing to diminish our expectations in terms of the quality or timeliness of Overwatch content in the future. Regardless, there are solid rumors going around that Overwatch Sombra might just be right around the corner. On the other hand, Blizzard is also making the next weekend free for Overwatch fans.