Overwatch 2: Invasion Launches Today, Here’s the Full Lowdown on Illari, PvE Missions, More

Overwatch 2: Invasion, Blizzard’s biggest update yet for the free-to-play game, launches... right now (the content should have unlocked within the last hour) but before you jump in, here’s some final info about the update. Invasion offers up a trio of PvE story missions (which are being sold at a $15 premium price tag), the support Hero Illari, the new Flashpoint mode, Hero Mastery missions, Hero Progression system, and more.

First up, let’s take a look at Illari, the sun-themed support Hero from Peru. Blizzard’s writers hinted during a preview event that she may have a darker side to her than you might expect at first glance, as she’s still “working through” some stuff after something very bad happened to her childhood village. As for powers, they also offer that balance of lightness and aggressiveness, as she can deploy a healing pylon to help her teammates, but also do heavy damage with her Solar Rifle. Here’s a rundown of her abilities…

Illari (Support)

Weapon

• Solar Rifle (Primary) - Long-range auto-charging rifle.
• Solar Rifle (Secondary) - Medium-range healing beam that consumes solar energy.

Ultimate

• Captive Sun - Illari fires an explosive ball of solar energy. Enemies hit are slowed and explode after taking significant damage.

Abilities

• Outburst - Launches you in the direction you are moving, knocking back enemies. Hold jump to go higher.
• Healing Pylon - Deploy a pylon that heals allies.

As for the new PvE story missions, while we’re only getting three of them, Blizzard is promising a lot of work has gone into them and they should be fairly replayable. They take place on their own maps, based on locales we’ve seen previously in PvP. Blizzard promises these will be some of the biggest, most complex maps they’ve done to date, and that the three story missions will be accompanied by around 20 minutes of in-game cinematics and 5,000 to 10,000 in-mission voice lines. There will be multiple difficulties for each PvE mission, and they can all be played with a large selection of characters, which will have slightly different powers to suit the mission. Will the missions be worth $15? That remains to be seen, but Blizzard claims they’ve put years of work into what they’re presenting here.

As mentioned, that’s not all Overwatch 2: Invasion offers. There’s the new core Flashpoint mode, which sees players battle over a series of five control points, the Hero Mastery missions for those looking for a quick single-player challenge, and a new Hero Progression system that lets you level up your favorite characters and earn Emblems.

Overwatch 2 can be played on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and Switch. The Invasion content is available as of today (August 10).

Written by Nathan Birch