Overwatch’s Winter Wonderland begins today

It’s that jolly time of year again – the time of unbridled stress, desperation to find, buy (and be able to afford) the right presents for what is often a disturbingly large number of relatives. It’s the time of hating Last Christmas and lying to children about Santa… in other words, the most festive time of year!

Naturally, everyone’s favourite esports game is going to join in on the fun, entirely without obnoxious Christmas songs we ALL secretly enjoy – yes, even you. Don’t deny it, Wham! is a delight. The Overwatch Christmas event isn’t technically branded as such – Blizzard specifically created it as a general Winter event instead, to make sure it appeals to people regardless of where they are from, and whether they celebrate Christmas or not.

It’s a pretty good move from a game known for approaching diversity openly and without many stereotypes. The Winter Wonderland event is scheduled to run for almost an entire month – launching on the 11th of December, it is supposed to run until January 2rd.

Naturally, the main feature of it are the returning (and new) Winter skins that are only available during this period. So far, only a few new skins have been revealed and fans are already licking their fingers for them – such as Snowboarder Zarya.

Other announced skins are Arctic Fox Lucio, Sugar Plum Fairy Mercy, Gift-Wrapped Bastion, Krampus Junkrat and Biathlon Widowmaker. Entirely unsurprisingly, the most popular of the new skins is Mercy’s Sugar Plum Fairy. Already the character with the best skins, hers is a real masterpiece. Junkrat’s Krampus and Bastion’s Christmas-presents have a lot to offer as well – this year’s skins are definitely good work.

In addition to new skins, there are also other things like limited time game modes and other cosmetics. Last year, there were 5 emotes, 15 victory poses, 52 voice lines, 59 sprays, 36 player icons and even 3 highlight intros to go with the 19 festive skins available.

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As for the limited time game modes: Mei’s Snowball Offensive will most likely return this year. It’s a 6v6 mode that is essentially a giant snowball fight. Mei’s primary weapon only has one shot, however, it also only takes one shot to kill the enemy. In other words: Complete carnage.

Mei’s Ulti unleashes an infinite flurry of snowballs for a brief time, giving you the chance to really wipe out the other time. As for the other game mode – the Yeti Hunter mode has five characters playing against one Winston in an asymmetric multiplayer game.

"The Yeti must gather meat to unlock a powerful rage ability adding immunity to freeze and more powerful bonuses," Blizzard explains.

We don’t yet know which maps these game modes will take place on, but winter editions of Black Forest, King’s Row and Hanamure are on the proverbial map for it – perhaps, there will be an entirely new one? All we can do now is wait for tomorrow!

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