‘Overwatch’ Winter Wonderland Holiday Event Now Live Featuring New Skins, Mei’s Snow Brawl Offensive

It is time to deck the halls with lights and snow in Overwatch. The Winter Wonderland event is now live on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One with special holiday loot boxes, a snowball fight brawl, and two themed maps sure to get players in the holiday spirit. All loot boxes purchased or earned during the event will have at least one Winter Wonderland event item inside, but players will have to act quickly. The Winter Wonderland loot will no longer be available after the event ends on January 2.

Right now, all loot boxes in Overwatch are Winter Loot Boxes with Winter Wonderland contents inside. According to the official site, over 100 new items like holiday skins, emotes, sprays, poses, introductions, and more are potential loot from the boxes. Some examples of the themed loot include a Santa suit for Torbjörn, a nutcracker outfit for Zenyatta, and Mercy holding up a sprig of mistletoe.

“While the contents of each seasonal Loot Box are random, you can unlock a variety of these cordial customization options in the Hero Gallery throughout the event’s duration.”

There is more to the event than just new collectibles, though. A special new brawl is now available where players can have a traditional Overwatch snowball fight. With nothing but Mei characters on the battlefield, players use modified versions of her weapon to fire snowballs at each other. To reload, players will need to find snowball piles as stated on the PlayStation Blog.

“Cover your retreat with ice walls and cryo-freezing or you won’t last long. Mei’s also devised a new ultimate ability that turns her blaster into a semi-automatic snowball cannon, allowing you to fire continuously as your enemies scatter.”

In addition to the new items and the brawl, players will find that two of the game’s maps are redecorated for the season. The Hanamura and King’s Row maps are snowy for the duration of the event. Hanamura is particularly striking with a few hidden snowmen waiting to greet players. The King’s Row map is also covered in snow but strings of holiday lights also line the streets.

The Winter Wonderland event is the third major Overwatch event since the game’s release in May 2016. The Summer Games event occurred over the summer with skins and emotes themed around the Olympics. During that event, the special Lúcioball brawl was available. That brawl had two teams of Lúcio characters working to score goals in a game similar to soccer or football.

In October, the second Overwatch holiday event took place celebrating Halloween. All loot boxes earned during that event included spooky Halloween items. The Halloween Terror event included a special player-versus-environment brawl called Junkenstien’s Revenge where a team of four specific characters fought waves of zomnics as reported by the Inquisitr.

Like those events, items available as part of the Winter Wonderland event will only be obtainable for a limited time. The event runs from now until January 2 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Any holiday items received during this time will remain after the events ends; however, players can only unlock them during the event.

?? Grab a mug of hot cocoa, put on an ugly sweater, and jingle all the way to Overwatch's Winter Wonderland! ??

??? https://t.co/Yxf5LoWgjQ pic.twitter.com/Urs8xxfEai

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) December 13, 2016

The holiday update also includes the latest patch to the game. The full patch notes, which are featured on Battle.net, indicate that Symmetra’s rework is now live. She now has the new Photon Barrier ability instead of the old Photon Shield ability. Symmetra can now also use a new alternate ultimate ability called Shield Generator. The Teleporter is still available, but Symmetra players can choose to place the Shield Generator instead of the Teleporter.

A handful of bug fixes for several of the game’s modes and hero fixes are also part of the update. A few general changes are now available; the most notable of which is the “Stay as Team” option for players after a match is completed. This lets members of a team stay together if they want to keep playing Overwatch together.

[Featured Image by Blizzard Entertainment]