UPDATE: I've just been hands-on with Ana on the Overwatch Public Test Realm. I like her! Despite not being quite as accurate as I would have liked, I still felt incredibly useful to my team. Everything she does, helps.

Take a look for yourself.

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ORIGINAL STORY: Blizzard has revealed its 22nd Overwatch hero, Ana Amari.

As last week's tease suggested, she's a support sniper with the ability to both damage her enemies and heal her allies, by firing at them with her rifle.

This is brand new for Overwatch, but it's also a mechanic that's rarely been seen before in competitive shooters. Exciting!

Ana's shots either restore health or deal ongoing damage to enemies, which sounds like a drain component. Your scoped accuracy increases the initial damage. You can see this happening in the shot on Widowmaker in the video below.

Alongside her primary ability, she can put enemies to sleep (and cancel their ultimates in the process - although any damage received wakes them), or throw a Biotic Grenade, which heals teammates and damages opponents within its area of effect. It also increases healing received on affected allies while preventing enemy players from being healed for a few moments.

As for her ultimate, Ana can target an ally to give them a big damage/speed/protection boost for a short period of time. This has some massive potential, as you can see in the gameplay video below.

And how does she fit into the game's story? Well, she's Pharah's mother, for a start.

Ana Amari was a founding member of Overwatch and as we discover in her origin trailer, she was shot by Widowmaker, before allowing the world to believe she was dead.

Interestingly there doesn't appear to be any link between Ana and Sombra, the hero we expected Blizzard to reveal this month. With that in mind, it's perhaps worth paying close attention to the brief shot of the original Overwatch team, shown in the trailer itself. We've already started speculating as to the identity of the two new characters flanking the group.

Ana will be playable on the Overwatch Public Test Realm from today, says Blizzard, with more details to follow soon.