Is Junker Queen Set to Be Overwatch’s Next Hero?

Or is Jeff Kaplan just playing us for fools?

During his annual Yule Log stream, Overwatch head honcho Jeff Kaplan may have been doing a little bit of teasing. With Overwatch 2 on the way, you would think that Overwatch will be in a pretty static state until the sequel arrives, but this may not be the case. During the stream, Kaplan began to talk about Junker Queen, and what kind of hero she might be.

“I wonder if the queen is ever going to be a hero?” Kaplan says, virtually out of nowhere. “What would she be? She’s not going to be support, right? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe she’s a tank? She could be damage. Damage or tank could be cool.”

Whether this was actually a teaser, or just Jeff Kaplan having some fun, is impossible to say, but it has been enough to get fan’s hopes up. It’s also an interesting thought for him to drop out of the blue, in the middle of a well-watched stream.

Fans have been curious about Junker Queen ever since the Junkertown map was introduced to the game in 2017. Junker Queen is the leader of Junkertown, and she had to go head to head with the likes of Junkrat and Roadhog. Design-wise, we would expect to see something that follows the trend set by those two Heroes, with plenty of spikes, leather, and rusted metal on display.

There is another possibility that fans might not be considering, where Junker Queen is a new Hero that we will be introduced with Overwatch 2. With no known release date for the follow-up game, it’s tough to know exactly how much space Blizzard feels they need to fill to keep players engaged.