The Overwatch fanbase has been calling for Doomfist’s inclusion into the game ever since the character was mentioned in the announcement trailer for Overwatch back in 2014. Initially meant as a fluff piece for lore, Blizzard rose up to the challenge to create the hero following the realisation of how popular he is with the fan base. And now, more than a year after the game released, Doomfist is finally available to play on the Public Test Realm (PTR).
Doomfist is the 25th hero in Overwatch and the 4th to be added to the game post-release. Blizzard has placed him in the Offense category of heroes owing to his damage dealing capabilities. Moreover, his high mobility, as well as personal shields, give him a lot of survivability.
Doomfist’s primary ability isn’t actually his Doomfist Gauntlet, it’s his Hand Cannon, a shotgun-esque weapon that fires a short-range burst from the knuckles of his fist. It automatically reloads over time.
Ability-wise, he has three active ones, with the most iconic being the Rocket Punch. Players can charge the Rocket Punch up which causes Doomfist to lunge forward and knock an enemy back. However, the majority of the damage that comes from this ability is only caused if the enemy is knocked back into a wall. The amount of damage dealt both in the initial punch and the wall slam depends on how much the Rocket Punch is charged up.
Rising Uppercut is the name of another ability of his. As can be inferred he punches an enemy up into the air (assuming they’re within range) but it can also be used as a form of mobility when it comes to escaping or accessing different points of the map. Furthermore, it also mini-stuns opponents.
Next, Doomfist has Seismic Slam, a targeted ground slam that draws enemies slightly towards him when he hits the ground. Damage is scaled depending on how far up Doomfist jumped; as a result, it can easily be combined with Rising Uppercut which allows him to travel triple the distance with the Seismic Slam.
Doomfist also has a passive ability called The Best Defense… a passive that gives Doomfist a temporary personal shield that is given to him whenever he lands an ability on an enemy. The shields will decay when not dealing damage with his abilities.
Finally, we have Meteor Strike, Doomfist’s ultimate ability. Hitting the Q key makes Doomfist invulnerable and gives a huge top-down reticle to the player which can be moved around the map for five seconds before being automatically cast (it can also be cast before the timer runs out). Once it has been cast, Doomfist deals massive damage to enemies caught in the centre of the reticle via a superhero landing, with damage numbers falling off as you move outwards.
As a result, Doomfist is poised to enter the current meta which is dive-centric and filled with highly mobile characters. Added to the fact that his abilities can go through shields seems to make tanks even more irrelevant. That said, it will take a while before Doomfist can finally settle into the meta (Sombra is only seeing a lot of playtime now, seven months after her release), no doubt with a lot of bug fixing and tweaking done along the way.
When it comes to lore, this Doomfist is soaked in a rich history. His real name is Akande Ogundimu and he was born into a well-regarded Nigerian family, heir to its prosthetic-technology company. Unfortunately, he lost his hand in the Omnic Crisis but was able to get a cybernetic prosthetic in its place. This proved to be a double-edged sword as he was barred from competing in martial arts tournaments, something he devoted a lot of time and effort to as he grew up.
He was then picked up and tutored by Akinjide Adeyemi, better known to the world as the second Doomfist, the Scourge of Numbani. Eventually, his mentor brought him into Talon, the fictional shadowy organisation which is the antithesis to Overwatch. Ultimately, and in classic bad-guy origin stories, he killed his master, taking the Doomfist Gauntlet for himself. He subsequently rose within the ranks of Talon before being defeated by Winston (with the help of Genji and Tracer).
Doomfist’s addition to the roster also shows us another change in direction for Blizzard, namely the length between teasing a hero and releasing them. Blizzard learned from its mistakes following the Sombra ARG, with the gap between teasing and releasing Orisa taking just a week. That process seems to have been accelerated with Doomfist being teased just a few days ago.
Critics have noted that for Overwatch to succeed as a competitive eSports game, the window between hero releases need to be dramatically shortened; currently, a new hero is being added every four months. The shortening period between teasing a new playable hero and releasing them might be an indication that Blizzard is ramping up production of new heroes, something the game needs to change the currently stale meta.
