Overwatch 2's highly anticipated space girl hero drops next week with season 12

It's been a long time since I've seen the Overwatch community as hyped about a new hero as much as Juno. Her trailer has over 2 million views on YouTube—more than the Overwatch 2 launch trailer—and my X feed is filled with posts from accounts dedicated to counting down the days until she's out. Everyone wants the space girl to come home, and she will next week when season 12 begins on Aug 20.

Although the season is titled «New Frontiers», it won't actually be themed around space or Juno's home planet Mars. Most of the new skins and cosmetics will be based around ancient Egyptian gods. Fittingly, Reaper will get a Mythic skin based on Anubis, the god of death.

But the real reason to log in is Juno, a support hero who brings a little Overwatch 1 back to Overwatch 2. She's like a puppeteer for your team, pulling them in different directions with her speed boosts and healing while she glides above. Her Mediblaster can't even headshot, which gives her the space to focus primarily on ushering her team through a match. No hero since Overwatch 2's release has been so reliant on strategy as Juno and I look forward to finding out what kind of clever team synergies players come up with.

Season 12 will also debut Clash, a fairly straightforward game mode where both teams try to take hold of a series of objectives that move further into the opposing side of the map. I played a few rounds during a playtest in season 10 and it was like a mix of king of the hill and Overwatch 1's assault, or 2CP, mode. Team fights happen quickly and are progressively harder for the winning side as they move closer and closer to the enemy spawn and away from theirs. Unlike the other modes, Clash seems to be all about running straight into each other, at least on the Hanaoka map that was available during the preview. A second one based on the Egypt-based Temple of Anubis map from Overwatch 1 will be available next week, too.

A handful of other notable updates are coming with season 12, including:

Ove