Overwatch finally reveals its newest hero, the healer sniper Ana Amari, along with an array of fantastic skins, but Blizzard warns there's no shortcut to collecting them.

It was quite some hype that Blizzard had been building for its next character in Overwatch. With all the teases and hints littering the game and other media, it was only a matter of time before the game's first downloadable character was announced, and many fans believed they knew who it would be. Most of them realized they were wrong when Blizzard announced Ana yesterday, surprising those who were riding the Sombra train.

Ana Amari, mother of current in-game hero Pharah, will be joining the ranks as a support sniper and looks pretty great doing it. While she is not playable in Overwatch's main game, she is playable on the test realms, and her skins and other cosmetic goodies are also available to peruse.

Her main set of costumes would feel right at home in Destiny -- especially her Shrike skin -- while the Wasteland skin is serving some post-apocalypse Mad Max realness. Surely one of the most anticipated is the Captain Amari skin, which is how Ana looked as a member of the original Overwatch team. Take a moment to bask in the cloaky goodness, but do not get any ideas about saving up Loot Boxes to obtain these glorious skins when the character is released. It will not work.

Following shortly after the character announcement, as a courtesy, Overwatch community manager Lylirra wrote a post on the official forums laying out the rules for Loot Boxes and why they should not be hoarded.

Now that we’ve revealed our upcoming hero, Ana, we know that some of you may want to try to prepare for her arrival either by stocking up on Loot Boxes or holding off on opening the ones you already have.

Before you do that, though, please remember the following: Loot Box contents are generated at the time that they earned or purchased, NOT when they are opened.

This means that any Loot Box you earn or purchase now, or at any point before Ana is released, will not have a chance to contain her cosmetic items. Only those Loot Boxes that are earned or purchased after she is live and playable on your gaming platform will be eligible for her skins, sprays, voice lines, hero emotes, etc. (This is how the system will continue to work for future content updates, too.)

It is understandable to be a tad bummed at this news since Loot Boxes are only obtainable when a player either gains a level or purchases them from the online store. This kind of pacing will restrict all players to earning new cosmetics at the same time, which is odd considering they have no effect on gameplay. Regardless, Blizzard must have their reasons so, until mobs of angry gamers rush to the forums to complain about it, these are the rules.

There is no word yet on when this new hero will be available in Overwatch's main game, but Blizzard is throwing "soon" around quite a bit so the wait should not be abnormally long. Ana is touting a pretty unique weapon, which should add a bit more strategy to both the sniper and healing classes, which are somewhat lacking. However, it appears Blizzard is addressing the latter, as it has announced some positive changes coming to two of the game's healers. Until then, gamers eager to practice with Ana can try her out right now if they play Overwatch on PC, simply by logging into the game's PTR (public test realm). For those who need more incentive, she has a delightfully wicked emote involving a tea bag.

Source: GameSpot