After the Summer Games, and Hallow's End, Overwatch is now home to Winter Wonderland (featuring a new gamemode and new collectables)!
Maybe the biggest surprise for Overwatch this year has been the frequency at which the developers are able to bring special seasonal events to the game. After we were surprised with the Summer Games (+ Lucioball) and the Halloween event (+ Dr. Junkenstein's Revenge), players can now login on all systems to experience the X-Mas event: Winter Wonderland.
As before, this temporary addition to the game brings with it plenty of reasons to keep playing. Blizzard keeps pushing their skin designs, so expect several must-haves. Secondly, they have created another custom gamemode, and don't forget all the other collectables you can get from lootboxes or buy for the next few weeks.
Mei's Snowball Offense
If you love Mei then you will love her even more in this mode. And if you hate her... well odds are you have already reached the limits of that hate. Nevertheless, do try out this temporary gamemode in the arcade.
For the first time, Ecopoint: Antarctica will be home to 6v6 matches. Every player is Mei, and your only weapon is a snowball shooter. With limited ammo, only resupplied through special snow piles throughout the map, every shot is a kill. Her ult has temporarily been reworked to offer unlimited snowballs for a short period, and her wall and Iceblock have been left untouched.
Map Reskins
Like Hollywood last time, more maps have received temporary reskins. Hanamura in Japan has hit the heart of winter, and is experiencing a lot of snow. Similarly, King's Row is also experiencing the results of Global Cooling. These maps (and maybe more) are the focus of this week's Mystery Heroes gamemode, and you should definitely play it once just to check out the map(s) as well as get the easy lootbox!
New Skins and Collectibles
The part of the event with the biggest impact (after the event) is the addition of skins, highlight reels, sprays, etcetera. These rewards you will have to unlock before the event ends, but will remain in your collection to be used after. We hope to have a video highlighting all new additions out soon, so keep an eye out on that! Otherwise, you can of course just login to check them out yourself.
The event will leave the game on January 2nd, so be sure to get all the rewards and gametime in that you desire. As a gift, Blizzard has added one Winter lootbox to every player's character, and several more can easily be achieved through playing in the Arcade.
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