What you need to know
- First teased back during BlizzCon 2023, Overwatch 2's 41st hero "Space Ranger" has been revealed as Juno, a new Martian support hero.
- Juno is a movement-themed healer that can glide around the battlefield and speed herself and her allies up as she heals and supports them with damage. Her abilities are covered in detail in the text below.
- Her place in the lore and story of Overwatch is a bit unclear right now, though there's speculation she's the daughter of Mei's friend Jiayi that she's mentioned in dialogue before.
- Juno is officially coming to Overwatch 2 for free when Season 12 starts on August 20, but thanks to a "hero trial," you can try her out this weekend from July 19-21.
Overwatch 2 developer Blizzard Entertainment first teased the game's 41st hero as "Space Ranger" way back during BlizzCon 2023, and thanks to a new reveal from the studio, we finally know her real name: Juno. She's a bouncy space cadet support character coming to the game for free when Season 12 goes live in August, but thanks to a hero trial, you'll be able to play her this weekend from July 19-21.
Juno will be available to pick in all game modes other than Overwatch 2's Competitive matchmaking, though in nearly all of them, the game's limit of one specific hero per team will still be enforced. It won't be in the No Limits arcade mode, though, so that'll be the best place to try her out if you don't want to compete with your fellow support players to see who can click her fastest.
We didn't get an in-depth look at all the nuances of Juno's kit in Blizzard's new gameplay trailer (watch it below), but an overview the developer shared after its release covers everything you need to know in detail. The basics of her abilities are her burst-fire primary Mediblaster weapon that heals teammates and damages enemies, along with secondary Pulsar Torpedoes that lock onto allies and foes, healing the former and harming the latter respectively.
Juno's passive is Martian Overboots, which allow the astronaut to double jump and then hover in the air a bit like one of Overwatch 2's flying heroes. This passive plays nicely with Glide Boost, an ability that lets her glide above and around the battlefield horizontally. I imagine it'll also have some neat air-strafe movement synergy with Hyper Ring, which creates a ring of energy that significantly increases the speed of Juno and any of her allies when moved through.
Finally, there's Juno's Ultimate, fittingly dubbed Orbital Ray — it literally causes some sort of spacecraft in orbit over Earth to shoot down a massive laser. This laser beam moves forward from where you call it in and simultaneously heals teammates while boosting their damage, though it doesn't seem to affect enemy players in any way.
As for Juno's place in the story? We don't know anything yet officially beyond the fact that she apparently came back from a trip to Mars, though as Polygon spotted last week, a "Space Ranger" called "J" landed in Overwatch 2's Dorado map. Many players assumed this referred to Mei's friend and grad school classmate Jiayi that she occasionally mentions in dialogue, but clearly it was actually Juno; notably, some believe that Juno is Jiayi's daughter.
We don't have clear answers yet, but I'm sure they'll come soon, as Blizzard typically releases hero backstory trailers soon after new characters are revealed with gameplay teasers like this one. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it drops alongside tomorrow's update that'll make Juno playable for the weekend.
Overall, with her bubbly attitude and movement-themed ability suite, Juno looks like quite a fun support hero to play. She definitely seems a bit simpler than many of Overwatch 2's other additions, but not every character needs to be complicated in order to be enjoyable or have depth.
Overwatch 2 Season 12 is scheduled to go live on August 20, at which point Juno will be added to the game officially. Currently, it's unclear if she'll be available in Competitive on day one or not; Season 10's new character Venture was, but every new Overwatch 2 hero before them didn't make it into Competitive until a few weeks after their release so that Blizzard had time to make necessary balance tweaks.
Overwatch 2 is currently available as a free-to-play game on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4. If you're a fan of team and class-based hero shooters, it's one of the best Xbox games and best PC games to play.
