Overwatch season 1's best new hero proves there's still plenty of life in the shooter

The poster child for new Overwatch

After the Overwatch Spotlight revealed five new heroes, jokes started floating around on Reddit that Emre was the John Halo of Overwatch. It's easy to see why. With his assault rifle, fast aiming down sights, and tactical grenades, Emre really does seem like a touch of Master Chief come to Blizzard's hero shooter. I figured he'd just be a faster Soldier 76, nothing outstanding, but not bad either, a familiar, uncomplicated, easy-to-learn new hero for the new Overwatch. What I didn't expect was Emre being the soul of the new Overwatch, too.

Finding good, creative angles of attack is one of the most important parts of learning how to play Overwatch, though Blizzard doesn't directly teach you how to do it. Admittedly, you can get through low and middle ranks of competitive matches just fine without thinking too closely about your position on the map. But Emre's kit is designed to reward you for thinking about it, as well as the relationship between your actions and when and where you perform them.

Take his Siphon Blaster, for instance. It's a hybrid of survival (direct hits restore Emre's health) and mobility (he moves faster and jumps higher) ostensibly meant for quick bursts of damage and healing. But in more than one match, I've seen Emre players use it as a last-ditch attempt to stall an entire team's progress while they wait for their allies to respawn and lend a hand. Maybe folks will get more used to these surprise tactics as time goes on, but it's a strong example of what you can pull off with a bit of lateral thinking.

His grenade is the most impressive part of his kit, though. It's not sticky like Bastion's Tactical Grenade, so you can bounce it around corners and surprise opponents who think they're safe behind cover. You can hurl it over shields to push enemies out. Or whip it really high over walls to soften or scatter opponents before the rest of your team rushes in. My favorite new tactic is sneaking behind an enemy group and lobbing grenades to distract them while the rest of the team bursts in and cleans them up. The throw distance is quite long, so you can do this without even putting Emre in danger.

Emre’s grenade has even more inventive uses. If you know where a Tracer is going to blink or recall to, toss a grenade to that spot and have a surprise waiting for her. It also works with Sombra. That means you'd do well to learn the patterns of how these characters move, knowledge you can use when playing as other heroes as well. Retreats are a lot more dangerous when there's a grenade chasing you, and Emre can drop a grenade at his feet when he's the one running away to catch pursuers unaware. It's also easy to keep teams pinned down at spawn in maps like Midtown and Hollywood if they don't learn not to run around as a giant group or just don't play to their characters' strengths.

Playing against a good Emre necessitates new defensive strategies and better teamwork, in other words. It's not enough to just rely on your tank to push through. The type of tank matters. If it's someone like Domina or Sigma, who struggle to handle foes at range, you're out of luck. So if the tank doesn't swap heroes, then it's up to your team's flankers to do their job and find a way through. In one memorable instance on the Hollywood map, my team's Domina held the main road, while I, as Emre, harassed the opposing team from the restaurant balcony that overlooks the spawn point. They only managed to move out after their Anran slipped onto the balcony and roasted me, so the rest of their team could swarm Domina.

The old way of doing things just doesn't apply with Emre anymore. You have to think carefully about where you're moving to and how you get there, and figure out how that position complements your hero's abilities. If you and your team don't play to your roles and figure out how to work together, you won't make much progress. It feels like Overwatch how it's meant to be played, like Blizzard at last found a way to make good on the promise of more agile, energetic matches that Overwatch 2 never quite managed to pull off.

Overwatch season 1 has flashier and more impressive characters. Domina's damage output is ridiculously high, leaving even the most aggressive damage heroes lagging far behind. Anran is a blast and a good lesson in cooldown management, and Mizuki is just plain cool. But Emre is the best example of what this game can, and hopefully will continue to, be.