During the Tokyo Game Show, developer Blizzard Entertainment revealed the new support hero coming to Overwatch 2: Kiriko. With a combination of powerful abilities that are both offensive and defensive in nature as well as some excellent mobility tools, Kiriko looks like she’ll be an incredibly effective character for support players that love to get into the thick of the action.
In this guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know about Kiriko, including all of her gameplay abilities, some quick tips on using her based on what we know, when she’s going to release, and how you’ll be able to unlock her in Overwatch 2.
Overwatch 2 Kiriko guide: Gameplay abilities
Like most other Overwatch heroes, Kiriko’s abilities are what define her gameplay style, strengths, and weaknesses. Here’s a complete overview of what each of her abilities do.
- Healing Ofuda: Kiriko’s primary fire allows her to help allies by sending paper talismans infused with healing power towards them. These projectiles are slow, but automatically track to allies as they move around.
- Kunai: Kiriko’s secondary fire allows her to launch kunai projectiles at her foes. These projectiles are very fast and deal high damage on critical hits, but only deal small amounts of damage on regular hits.
- Swift Step: Allows Kiriko to teleport to her allies. Has a large range, and can even be used to teleport through walls.
- Protection Suzu: This thrown bell makes Kiriko and her allies invulnerable to damage very briefly. It’s also capable of cleansing debuffs and stuns.
- Kitsune Rush (Ultimate): Kiriko creates a large path of spirit energy on the ground (indicated by Japanese torii gates) that buffs her and her allies with increased movement, reload, and attack speed, as well as reduced ability cooldowns.
- Wall Climb (Passive): Like Genji and Hanzo, Kiriko is capable of climbing walls in order to reach high ground locations.
Overwatch 2 Kiriko guide: Quick tips
While we don’t have Kiriko in our hands just yet, we can offer you some quick tips to keep in mind when you do get to play her based on everything we know about her abilities.
- Preemptively use Healing Ofuda on teammates. The slowness of these projectiles will make it a little difficult to heal allies right away, so shooting some at your team right before they’re about to take damage ensures that they’ll get some healing right away.
- Aim for the head with Kunai. Kiriko’s kunais are deadly when you land crits, but they only do minor damage on bodyshots. Therefore, practice consistently landing headshots so you can get the most out of your attacks.
- Abuse Swift Step’s ability to go through walls. Swift Step is the only Overwatch ability that allows you to travel through walls, so take advantage of that. If you teleport through a wall in order to reach teammates, anyone that’s fighting you will be forced to go over or around the obstacle.
- Save Protection Suzu for Ultimates and other powerful abilities. The Protection Suzu’s ability to make your entire team briefly invincible is very powerful, but since the ability has a very long cooldown, it’s important not to waste it. Save it until you’re sure it will save you and your allies from something extremely dangerous, such as a Junkrat RIP-Tire explosion.
- Use Protection Suzu to counter debuffs. Since Protection Suzu can cleanse your team of debuffs and stuns, you should use it to do that when you can. Debuffs like the anti-heal from Ana’s Biotic Grenade are powerful enough to swing entire teamfights, so being able to get rid of them is valuable and will give your team a chance to fight back.
- Use Kitsune Rush to attack objectives. Since Kiriko’s Ultimate gives her and her allies increased movement, reload, and attack speed, it will no doubt be an incredibly powerful tool for quickly pushing into enemy territory and attacking objectives. The reduced ability cooldowns it provides teammates with will also give your team a big edge in direct fights.
- Don’t forget to take high ground with Wall Climb. The Wall Climb passive is very powerful, as it allows you to take high ground for better firing angles and keep up with mobile heroes like Winston, Genji, and Hanzo so that you can heal them when they need your help.
Overwatch 2 Kiriko: Release date
Blizzard has confirmed that Kiriko, alongside both the new damage hero Sojourn and the new tank hero Junker Queen, will release alongside Overwatch 2 when it launches on Oct. 4, 2022. This means that she’ll be available from Day 1 in the new game.
Overwatch 2 Kiriko: How to unlock
While both Sojourn and Junker Queen will be immediately playable for everyone, Kiriko — as well as future Overwatch 2 heroes — is not. To immediately be able to play Kiriko in Overwatch 2, you’ll have to purchase Overwatch 2 Season 1’s $10 Premium Battle Pass reward track. There’s also the option of the Overwatch 2 Watchpoint Pack, which costs $40 and includes access to Season 1’s Premium Battle Pass as well as a handful of exclusive cosmetic items and some in-game currency. Owners of the original Overwatch also get instant access to Kiriko as long as they log in before Season 1 ends, though they won’t be able to access future heroes in this way.
All other players can unlock Kiriko by reaching Tier 55 on the Overwatch 2 Battle Pass. This means you’ll have to grind for XP by playing matches and completing gameplay challenges for awhile before you can play the new hero. Note that all future new heroes that release during future seasons will be unlockable at Tier 55 as well.
The move from immediately making heroes available for everyone to putting them in the Battle Pass is part of Overwatch 2’s new seasonal free-to-play model, in which Blizzard hopes to give players satisfying opportunities for progression by allowing them to earn unlocks and currency to spend on the Overwatch 2 in-game Store without ever having to deal with randomness like they had to with loot boxes.
