Brigitte Lindholm is a fictional player character who appears in the 2016 video game Overwatch—a first-person shooter developed by Blizzard Entertainment—and related animations and literary media. Although Overwatch was released in 2016, Brigitte was introduced as a playable support character in a March 2018 update for the game. Prior to her video game debut, she first appeared in Dragon Slayer, an issue of the Overwatch digital comic series.
Development and design
Brigitte as a character had already been introduced within the lore of Overwatch as Torbjörn's daughter and friend to Reinhardt, through the Dragon Slayer digital comic released in 2016. Brigitte was developed alongside the character of Moira, who was the game's 26th hero. Originally named Pally, Blizzard had originally given her an ability to send out a healing orb to other teammates which had a long cooldown time. As they fleshed out both characters, they opted to push the tank-hybrid more for Pally, and transferred the healing orb to Moira, which would become part of her Biotic Orb abilities. As they worked more on Pally's character, they recognized her skill set integrated well with Brigitte's own story, and thus established the hero to the established lore.
Overwatchs developers designed Brigitte as a support–tank hybrid intended to counter the "dive" strategy that was dominating the current Overwatch metagame. With the dive strategy, a team would have a mobile character (such as Winston or Tracer) race into the back lines of a defending team while the defenders main tanks were elsewhere and unable to protect the weaker characters. This would be a sacrificial move by attacking teams, using the disruption to deal with the other remaining team. With Brigitte on defense, she would be able to stun and delay the diving character long enough to allow the defending team to react and close ranks, nullifying the dive strategy. Jeff Kaplan called the character, prior to her formal reveal, as "very needed" in the game.
In late February 2018, Brigitte was officially announced to be the 27th playable character in Overwatch. Matilda Smedius provides the voice for Brigitte. In a developer update video introducing Brigitte, Overwatch developer Jeff Kaplan described Brigitte's gameplay abilities, detailing her design as a support–tank hybrid. Brigitte's "hybrid" description stems from the game incorporating both abilities seen in the tank role—like a barrier shield—as well as healing abilities in her skill set. Although referring to Brigitte as a "hybrid" character, Kaplan maintained that she is a primarily support character.
The character spent a few weeks playable only on Blizzard's "Public Test Realm" (PTR) server, before she was made fully available to players on March 20. After Brigitte was initially made available on Blizzard's PTR server, PCGamesN noted her ability to disrupt "dive comp", a team composition featuring tank character Winston and offense character Tracer. The outlet explained dive comps are "defined by mobile characters able to pounce on key enemy characters - typically their supports - before they can react, then mopping up the rest of the team once an advantage has been won." PCGamesN connected Brigitte's ability to disrupt this aspect of the game's meta to Kaplan's statements about how she would "shake up the meta."
Appearances
Though the Overwatch video game does not have a standard campaign or story mode, Blizzard has used media external to the game to disseminate story elements regarding Brigitte's place in Overwatchs lore. Brigitte's introduction as a character precedes her addition to the game's roster; her first official appearance was in Dragon Slayer, the second issue of the Overwatch digital comic series. Dragon Slayer, released in April 2016, features Brigitte throughout, but focuses on Reinhardt defeating local thugs. She later appeared in the December 2016 issue Reflections in a panel featuring her family and Reinhardt. Brigitte later appeared in the November 2017 animated short, Honor and Glory, which centered around the character Reinhardt.
Brigitte made her video game debut in March 2018, when she was added to Overwatchs playable Hero roster. Coinciding with the announcement of Brigitte being included in Overwatchs playable character roster, Blizzard released a short animated origin story about her, focusing on her relationships with Torbjörn and Reinhardt.
Brigitte's character backstory is tied into that of her father Torbjörn's and her godfather Reinhardt's. Outside of the game, Blizzard's fictional biography for Brigitte lists her full real name as Brigitte Lindholm, her age as 23, and her former base of operations as Gothenburg, Sweden.
