With all the crazy different flavors of heroes presented in Overwatch, the extra vanilla taste of Soldier 76 proves he's the one most deserving of a full on rework. While not a bad character, his abilities and playstyle were generic and unfulfilling, and was constantly ranked low in the meta.

Blizzard seems to have noticed this however, and some new data shows the possibility of 76 getting the spotlight he always deserved.

Overwatch 2: Soldier 76 Rework Detailed

Keeping all his vanilla abilities from the first game, the only thing he's given is a 10% boost in movement speed, given to all DPS classes regardless. At first this seems underwhelming, considering the crazy new abilities of heroes like Cassidy's new grenades.

However, that simplicity and speed is what make him one of the better characters in Overwatch 2's beta. With his sprint ability, he can move lightning fast through the levels, and operate independently for a short while due to his Biotic Field ability. That, combined with his versatile energy rifle and rockets, makes him extremely versatile. He's already moved up the ranks of the meta quite quickly, despite not even being mentioned in the patch notes.

That being said, this probably won't be the case for long, as Blizzard is constantly tweaking the heroes due to player feedback, and they're not going to let the assault rifle wielding hero to be the best character in the game.