Deck The Halls With Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 Right Now

Published: December 11, 2018 4:48 PM /

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overwatch winter wonderland 2018 hamster

Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 is now live! The winter event for Blizzard Entertainment's premier first-person shooter has made its return with a bunch of new cosmetics and the same great Arcade game modes.

A trailer for Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 was posted on the game's official YouTube account. Let's give it a look to see all of the new goodies in motion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAZ7azcr3cw

Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 isn't going to be doing much new in the way of gameplay this year - at least from what we can see on the Arcade screen. Mei's Snowball Fight and Yeti Hunt are both currently available in the arcade for players to get their weekly Arcade loot boxes.

Speaking of loot boxes, this year saw a single bonus loot box handed out to players in celebration of the holiday season. It doesn't quite stack up to the five loot boxes that Blizzard gave out in the event's inaugural year, being more inline with what they give for other events. Here's hoping that you'll get one of the skins you're hoping for.

There are six new Legendary skins and three Epic skins in Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018. Surprisingly, the game's newest hero Ashe has gotten a skin for this event (even though it's just an Epic). Take a look at what you could get out of a loot box if you're lucky!


[gallery link="file" size="medium" ids="266953,266954,266955,266956,266957,266958,266959,266960,266943"]


This year's skin offerings include quite a few heroes getting a second event skin before some heroes have even gotten their first. Lúcio and Zarya are getting Legendaries - a step up from the Epics they got in previous years. Junkrat is surprisingly getting another Legendary after already having one for the event. The remainder of the skins are firsts for the heroes shown above.

A single new highlight intro was added for this year (shown as our header image). Wrecking Ball (or as everyone else calls him, Hammond) is shown biting into a wire and splicing it. The camera then pans around to reveal an array of Christmas lights strung up on his mech that he built by converting an escape pod from Horizon Lunar Colony.

Six new Victory Poses were made available for the Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 event. They continue with the tradition of showing the game's heroes toasting with a mug or glass:


[gallery columns="6" link="file" size="full" ids="266946,266947,266948,266949,266950,266951"]

Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 features six new festive victory poses for the game's heroes.


The Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 patch has done more than just activate the seasonal event. A handful of balance changes and quality-of-life improvements were deployed alongside the event.

First - and perhaps most importantly - B.O.B. is getting blinged out. Ashe's Omnic butler will now have a golden tint when Ashe equips her Golden Weapon. This is a travesty that Blizzard has thankfully resolved in short order (and they didn't even have to apologize to an entire country for this one).

The rest of the heroes have gotten actual mechanical changes. Here's the shortlist:

  • Bastion
    • Configuration: Recon ammo upped from 25 to 35
    • Configuration: Sentry weapon spread decreased by as much as 33% when firing
  • Brigitte
    • Shield bash can no longer pass through or stun targets behind barriers
    • Damage lowered from 50 to 5, a 95% (!) decrease
  • Doomfist
    • Rising Uppercut loss of air control duration lowered to 0.6 seconds, down from 3.0 seconds
    • Seismic Slam max range reduced from 20 meters to 15 meters
    • Seismic Slam targets no longer lose air control
    • Meteor Strike inner ring damage radius increased from 1.5 meters to 2 meters
    • Meteor Strike outer ring damage reduced to 200, down from 300
  • McCree
    • Peacekeeper alt fire damage increase from 45 to 55
  • Torbjörn
    • Molten Core DPS increase from 130 to 160
A number of other small bug fixes and the like were also pushed in this patch. Be sure to read the full patch notes for all the fine details.


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Genji and Torbjörn get some pretty cool new emotes for Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018. Torb continues the theme of opening up hilarious presents.


One thing is noticeably missing from the Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 event - the game itself isn't on sale. It may be too early in December for Blizzard to drop the price, but they've done it for the last few years and it'd be kinda nuts if they missed the opportunity to do it again this year.

You can read more about the Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 event by heading on over to its page on the game's official website. If you don't want to wait a few days for the game to (probably) go on sale, you can pick up Overwatch over on Blizzard Battle.net. Have fun with the new goodies and watch out for the snowballs with the rocks in 'em!

What do you think of the new skins in the Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2018 event? Are you disappointed by the lack of new gameplay? Let us know in the comments below!

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


A photograph of TechRaptor Senior Writer Robert N. Adams.
| Senior Writer

One of my earliest memories is playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I've had a controller in my hand since I was 4 and I… More about Robert N

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