It's the most wonderful time of the year, and we hope you'll join us for some holiday cheer!
That's right—Overwatch is getting into the holiday spirit with a brand-new seasonal event. We’ve decked the halls of Hanamura and King’s Row, stuffed our Loot Boxes full of festive goodies, and arranged an extra-special snowball fight for you and your friends. So, grab a mug of hot cocoa, put on your favorite ugly sweater, and get ready to jingle all the way to Overwatch's Winter Wonderland!
Starting today, all in-game Loot Boxes have been replaced with our impeccably wrapped Winter Loot Boxes, and they’re filled to the brim with over 100 new cosmetic trimmings!
As with previous events, Winter Loot Boxes can be earned or purchased, and each will contain at least one item from our 2016 Winter Wonderland collection—including profile icons, sprays, victory poses, emotes, highlight intros, skins, and more! 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.
Once you've unlocked an item, it will be yours forever, which means you can get into holly jolly hijinks all year-round. The collection will be dashing back into the vault on January 2, however (when the event concludes), so be sure to fire up your favorite gaming machine and celebrate before it’s too late!
During this year’s Winter Wonderland event, you’ll also be able to queue up for a brand new brawl: Mei’s Snowball Offensive! Mei’s Snowball Offensive is a 6v6, single-elimination shindig featuring everyone's favorite climatologist—and she's got a few new tricks up her fur-lined sleeve.
In this brawl, Mei's Endothermic Blaster no longer unleashes a stream of frost or shoots icicles. Instead, it's been modified to fire a single, super-powered snowball. Taking down an enemy only takes one hit, but a miss can be costly. Once your weapon is empty, your enemies will have the advantage as you search for the nearest snow pile to reload, so don't forget to cover your retreat with ice walls and cryo-freeze to block their attacks—and when the battle starts to heat up, you can activate Mei's Ultimate, which turns her blaster into a semi-automatic snowball launcher, allowing you to fire continuously as your enemies scatter.
We'll also be spreading some good tidings and cheer over on our social media pages, so be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for a steady stream of joyful gifs, merry memes, and more—and don't forget to keep an eye on playoverwatch.com for the latest game news!
Stay frosty, heroes, and happy holidays from all of us at Blizzard Entertainment. Winter Wonderland is live RIGHT NOW on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, so get in there and get merry!