Overwatch 2’s new hero, Lifeweaver, has a compelling origin story and a fantastic look, but what players will really want to know is how the support works in practice. So, let’s break down Lifeweaver’s fascinating kit that promises to bring some new dimensions to what a support can do in Overwatch 2.
The main purpose of a support is to back up tanks and damage heroes with healing, and Lifeweaver’s primary fire handles that side of things. It’s called Healing Blossom. You can hold down primary fire to charge a burst of healing and then release the button to provide some healing to a targeted ally.
To defend himself, Lifeweaver will have to switch weapons (like Mercy or Torbjorn). His attack is called Thorn Valley. It emits a rapid-fire stream of projectile thorns, keeping in with his plant aesthetic. The thorns can deal critical damage.
Lifeweaver’s abilities are where things get really interesting. His right click is called Petal Platform. This deploys a platform that can be placed on the ground (it can bounce off of walls first if you’re particularly skillful). When Lifeweaver, an ally or an enemy steps on the platform, it sends them upwards. If you jump just as the platform reaches its apex, you can get an extra height boost.
Lifeweaver’s abilities are based on bio-light.
Blizzard Entertainment
Off the bat, this opens up a ton of offensive and defensive gameplay abilities. It can give a sniper an instant vantage point to land some headshots or give the likes of Ana and Kiriko a clearer line of sight to distant teammates for extra healing. It can also give your allies a swift escape from an enemy or displace an ulting opponent. As shown in the gameplay trailer, it can lift an Orisa to the sky to nullify Terra Surge. I’m not sure if it would work on a self-destructing D.Va mech.
Next, there’s another movement ability, but one that’s only for Lifeweaver. It’s called Rejuvenating Dash. This can quickly zip the support horizontally in any direction while providing him with some healing. Combined with Petal Platform, this makes Lifeweaver one of the more mobile supports, which should prove handy for both attacking and evasion.
Lifeweaver’s Life Grip can reposition an ally.
Blizzard Entertainment
Life Grip
Lifeweaver’s final core ability brings yet another fresh mechanic to Overwatch 2. It’s called Life Grip. It puts a protective bubble around an ally while pulling them back to your location.
Again, it’s easy to see the kinds of situations this could be useful for. As the trailer suggests, if you react quickly, you can save a teammate before they get knocked off the map. You can also use it to quickly relocate an ally, such as an ulting Reaper or another teammate to help you out if an enemy is harassing you in the backline.
I’m not quite sure yet how the ability works vertically. For instance, you might be able to yoink a Reinhardt up to give him a different angle for an Earthshatter.
Life Grip could offer some utility to supports as well. If a teammate wades a little too far into enemy territory, you could yank them back. Or (and you didn’t hear this from me) if the opportunity arises and one of your teammates is using a troll pick, you might subtly haul them above an abyss and send them back to the spawn room. Again, you didn’t hear that from me.
The Overwatch 2 team told me and other reporters a while back that they’ve tried to add an ability like this to the game for years. They’ve finally figured out a way to include it in a way that hopefully makes sense in practice.
Oh, Lifeweaver has a unique passive too. When he dies, he drops a “gift” that another player can pick up. Here’s an interesting wrinkle, though. Both allies and enemies can pick up the flower, which provides a health boost. Allies receive more health from it than enemies do.
Lifeweaver
Blizzard Entertainment
Lifeweaver’s Ultimate
Last but not least is Lifeweaver’s ultimate. It’s called Tree of Life. Lifeweaver places a tree made of bio-light that provides allies with an instant burst of healing as well as more healing over time. The Tree of Life also acts as cover, and could be very handy for helping to capture or defend an objective.
It could be used for trolling as well, in a similar way to Mei’s Ice Wall, but spending an ultimate just to block an ally seems a little much. More practically, you might use Tree of Life to block chokepoints and stop enemies from reaching the objective during overtime.
So, there you have it. Lifeweaver has a huge array of abilities that could upend the dynamics of Overwatch 2 and provide some killer new gameplay opportunities.
“The aim was to create another support hero that didn’t rely on aim skill,” Overwatch 2 lead hero designer Alec Dawson recently told reporters. “Lifeweaver is designed for players that care a bit more about their own positioning, their game sense — those are the skills they check on more than necessarily aim skill.”
Lifeweaver will be available when Season 4 starts on April 11 (and will be free for a limited time before going behind the battle pass). I’ll have some hands-on impressions of him later this week.
A handy little update to the official ChatGPT app means you can now use Apple’s Siri to talk to the chatbot.
The useful trick works through an Apple feature called Shortcuts that lets you automate tasks on your iPhone.
Once set up, you can basically ask Siri to fetch answers from ChatGPT. It’s kind of like rewiring Siri’s brain to make the otherwise limited digital assistant a lot smarter. Until Apple gives the voice bot an AI language upgrade, this is the next best thing.
OpenAI launched the free ChatGPT iPhone app in the US last month, and quickly brought it to the UK. Although the app already offers a voice input feature that relies on its Whisper speech-recognition system, linking it to Siri means you can also use it on other Apple devices like a HomePod smart speaker.
Setting up the new feature is a breeze – here’s what you need to do.
Now, head to the Shortcuts app, which is available on any iPhone running iOS 12 or later.
Here, you can click the plus icon in the top-right corner and search for ChatGPT to set up the default Shortcut.
However, if you want to customise it, then you should click on the Shortcuts button in the top-left corner, and you should see ChatGPT under “App Shortcuts.”
Now, select “Add to shortcut” and tweak it how you want. For instance, you can set it to react to a specific command, such as “Hey Siri, Ask AI” instead of the standard prompt “Hey Siri, Ask ChatGPT”.
Watch out for ChatGPT clones
Within three weeks of its launch, the OpenAI ChatGPT app was downloaded 5 million times, according to data.ai.
The bot landed in an App Store full of clones and duplicates with similar-sounding names, some of which were using shady tactics to charge users for their services.
Thankfully, you can usually spot these dubious “fleeceware” apps by their low review scores. Google and Apple also removed some of the worst rip-offs after they were contacted by cybersecurity researchers.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage finally showed the much-anticipated return of classic elements from the franchise during the PlayStation Showcase. This trailer highlighted various elements, encouraging fans to anticipate future gameplay from Ubisoft.
A developer diary from the studio has now been released, highlighting classic elements featured in the Assassin’s Creed title. This includes stealth, assassinations, and parkour mechanics.
Why it matters: Many fans have been waiting for a classic Assassin’s Creed experience since the RPG trilogy. Mirage promises a return to the basic formula, focusing on the core Assassin’s Creed experience.
Here is the full version of #AssassinsCreed Mirage – “A Return to the Roots”!
This is the first of series of 3 dev diaries on #AssassinsCreedMirage and is specifically focused on Parkour, Stealth and Assassinations!
— Access The Animus (@AccessTheAnimus) June 9, 2023
The developer diary explains Ubisoft’s thought process and focuses when returning to the classic formula.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage brings parkour mechanics like elevators, vaulting, and a dense map that encourages creative movement. Basim is more agile than recent Assassins, making parkour more fluid than before. Ubisoft also introduces new mechanics like the pole vault.
For fans of stealth, elements like social stealth will be making a comeback. Additionally, players can utilize bench assassinations, and Ubisoft has added more animations for stealth kills. This should ensure players are encouraged to pick the stealthy approach as they play through the upcoming release.
The game promotes freedom in story missions, allowing players to approach assassinations at their own pace. Assassin’s Creed Mirage also features bureaus that act as mission hubs, allowing players to take up side quests like assassinations and rescue missions.
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Assassin’s Creed Mirage is set to launch on October 12. Ubisoft has previously stated that the game was inspired by fan demand for a classic Assassin’s Creed experience, and the first developer diary shows just a few ways, in which Ubisoft is looking to bring the old formula to life.
One interpretation of the beginning footage in the trailer is that it’s showing the events in an alternate timeline. Cloud is missing from the group of Avalanche members’ bodies recovered by Shinra, seemingly after their attempt to break out of the headquarters or potentially during a routine reactor bombing mission. The fact that the spikey-haired hero is missing has some fans wondering if the footage is a brief look at a Final Fantasy VII timeline where he never made it to Midgar, or perhaps one where he joins Sephiroth instead of fighting him at the end of Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Another theory is that the footage is made-up altogether. We don’t actually see direct shots of the Avalanche members’ bodies. Instead it’s through the eyes of Shinra TV, an organization with a clear and documented history of fake news and propaganda. It’s possible the footage is just showing how Shinra will eventually try to cover up the team’s headquarters rampage and ensuing car chase to keep the residents of Midgar calm and in the dark.
The trailer gives us our first look at a Chocobo out in the wild at the farm where players were eventually able to breed them in the original game. It’s unclear if that mechanic will be saved for the final game in the remake trilogy, or if players will get the chance to breed a Gold Chocobo in Rebirth and even take it to race it at the Gold Saucer. I can only imagine how many hours I’ll be spending on the Chocobo tracks if that’s the case.
The Turks are on the chase again and Elena is their newest member. The reckless recruit is as much of a punk as ever in the new trailer. She has a crush on Tseng, the leader of the Turks, and her antics with Rude and the rest will no doubt spawn an endless number of memes. Her cameo in the trailer is already leading to a ton of fan art.
Ho Ho Hooo! Bugenhagen has made the jump to PS5 as well and the Cosmo Canyon elder looks glorious. Red XIII’s surrogate grandfather can be heard explaining how the planet relies on the Lifestream to exist, and he still doesn’t have legs and floats around instead. One of the game’s most beloved and strange-looking characters in his original 32-bit form, the glow up is real and players are loving it.
The Shinra airship doesn’t get a moment to shine in the trailer, but it can be seen in the background of the initial shot of the seaside military base Juno. It might end up that only in the trilogy’s final game will players get to step inside and take the reins over for themselves, but in the meantime the Highwind is already getting fans excited for when that moment comes.
“I saw you lying there. I figured it was too late,” Cloud said in the first Rebirth trailer. “Wait, what are you implying? That I died? That I’m some kind of imposter?” responded Tifa. In the new trailer Sephiroth says, “You know that I killed her, so who is she?” This has fans wondering if the Tifa we know from Remake is actually a clone, or a version of Jenova, Sephiroth’s mutant alien half-mom. It’s possible that the developers are just building intrigue by how the dialogue is framed, or maybe it’s laying the groundwork for a radically different outcome to the rest of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s story.
This all culminates in what would be the weirdest twist of all: Aerith not dying in the remake trilogy. The dream of saving Final Fantasy VII’s iconic flower girl is as old as the game itself, with urban legends that an option to stop Sephiroth from killing her or bring her back to life were hidden inside the game or cut at the last minute. If Tifa, or at least the original version of her, was killed at some point, maybe it implies that Aerith will live instead, or that Cloud will have the option to choose between different timelines where one set of tragic events is replaced with another. Or maybe this is all just the same type of wishful thinking Final Fantasy VII fans have been using to cope since the game came out. We’ll see what answers Rebirth provides when it arrives early next year. For now it’s fun to believe anything’s possible.
Kotaku is covering everything Summer Game Fest, from the main show on Thursday to other events happening throughout the next week. Whether you’re into larger-than-life triple-A games or intimate, offbeat indies, you can keep up with all things SGF here.
