The cancellation of two months of Overwatch League events might have you down, but the latest and greatest Overwatch Archives skins have been revealed with the launch of the 2020 event! A whole bunch of new stuff has arrived for Blizzard's fantastic first-person shooter, including an absolute unit of a cat, a decent Zarya skin, and more!
Let's kick things off by checking out the trailer for the event which includes a look at the new Overwatch Archives skins.
The New Overwatch Archives Skins for 2020's Event
As always, we'll be looking at the cosmetics first! The new Overwatch Archives skins are looking pretty great! Starting things off are five Legendary skins, and I struggle to find a bad one among them.
Also arriving are three Epic "challenge" skins that are repeating the game's pattern of allowing one Epic skin to be unlocked for nine wins in any game mode during the event, one week at a time.
Legendary Skins
Epic Challenge Skins
It should be noted, once again, that the above Epic Skins can only be received by winning nine games in most game modes per week. One skin will be available at a time; Symmetra's " Holi" Epic skin is the first one up for grabs.
Brigitte's Cat Makes a Splash
We don't always post emotes, but just look at Brigitte's adorable chonker of a cat! Look at him, and despair. This emote is one of the handful of "Legendary" emotes in the game, so it will cost you a cool 3,000 Credits if you want to buy it straight-up.
Of course, there's more coming to the game than just a bunch of great Overwatch Archives skins and a cool cat emote! Sigma and Sombra are each getting a new highlight intro and there are also a bunch of new voice lines and sprays for players to enjoy.
Overwatch Archives Remixes Game Modes
There's a bit of bad news if you were hoping for a new story mission: we aren't getting one. However, each of the three existing Archives story missions are getting two special challenge modes apiece as noted on the event's page. Uprising's modified missions are available right now, with Retribution and Storm Rising to follow in weeks 2 and 3 of the event, respectively.
Uprising
- Molten Cores - Enemies drip lava upon death.
- Glass Cannon - Players have reduced health, but they deal increased damage.
Retribution (Available Week 2)
- Surgical Strike - Only critical hits (headshots) do damage.
- Close Quarters - Enemies can only be killed if a player is near them.
Storm's Rising (Available Week 3)
- Blood Moon Rising - No support heroes; players can only heal by doing damage.
- Storm Raging - Some enemies are enraged. Killing them spreads the rage to other enemies.
If these aren't quite your thing, it's no big deal! The "Story" and "All Heroes" options are still available for your PVE fanatics out there.
Other Changes Coming in the Overwatch Archives Patch
Aside from the event and the shiny new skins, some other changes are making their way into the game.
The big highlight is the brand-new ability to share replays! Players can pin up to 10 replays to keep until the next patch. These replays allow you to share them with an alphanumeric code and append a note to them to describe them in a little more detail.
The "Assemble Heroes" time has been reduced in some modes. It has been dropped from 35 seconds to 30 seconds in the Assault, Hybrid, Control, and Payload game modes.
Finally, some heroes are getting changes, too! You can read the full patch notes for all of the other details.
Baptiste
- Exo Boots charge time reduced from 1 second to 0.7 seconds.
- Regenerative Burst cooldown lowered from 15 seconds to 13 seconds.
D.Va
- Boosters cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
Mei
- Ice Wall cooldown increased from 10 to 13 seconds
- "Large" heroes (Reinhardt, Roadhog, etc.) can now fit through 1-pillar gaps.
Orisa
- Fusion Driver Primary Fire damage increased from 10 to 11.
Sigma
- Gravitic Flux Ultimate cost reduced 10%.
- Flight speed increased 30%.
Soldier: 76
- Helix Rockets cooldown reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds.
Sombra
- Machine Pistol Primary Fire spread decreased by 10%.
With the recent departure of Head Writer Michael Chu and Overwatch 2 on the horizon, it looks like things are shaping up for a new and interesting future for Overwatch! You can try to get your hands on these new Overwatch Archives skins and enjoy all of the other new goodies right now! The Overwatch Archives event ends on April 2, 2020.
What do you think of the new skins in the Overwatch Archives 2020 event? Are you disappointed at the lack of a new story mission? Let us know in the comments below!
