Overwatch Dataminers Find Holiday Event Clues

Dataminers over on the FacePunch forums and Reddit have recently unearthed a lot of clues as to what the holiday Overwatch event will include when it officially gets announced, expanding on what had already been discovered. They seem to have discovered what look to be new map files as well as a bunch of new audio files, one of which being a holiday version of the Overwatch theme.

You can find all the audio files on this Reddit post by user Venxa, with links to each file. On top of the files for music and character interaction voice lines, there are several lines for the Overwatch AI Athena saying "now entering the arena", "Challenger", and "Gladiator". Those Athena voice lines seem to suggest a new game mode, possibly the holiday event game mode. Blizzard has expressed interest in more PvE content similar to Junkenstein's Revenge, the Halloween event, so it's not unlikely the upcoming holiday event is also PvE.

Back with the FacePunch dataminers, user Kjasi has provided predictions about the event-based the data uncovered so far. This is all speculation so take it with a grain of salt. They first state that there are 4 new map files, one for the special event game mode, and possibly up to three holiday versions of existing maps. The Hollywood map was given a Halloween makeover, so seeing other maps get one for the upcoming event is likely and having several for a different holiday that general falls during December could account for the three extra map files. Next, they state that every character will be getting a spray, voice-line, and victory pose, like during the Halloween event.

As for which characters will be getting fancy new skins, emotes and highlight intros, there are lists for the differing amount of new things. Characters that they suspect will be getting a new skin, emote, or highlight intro (only one) are:

• Widowmaker
• Reinhardt
• Mercy
• Symmetra
• Reaper
• Sombra
• Roadhog
• D.Va
• Ana
• Solider: 76
• Lucio

They also give a list of heroes that they think will receive two new items, and they are:

• Winston
• McCree
• Mei
• Pharah
• Zarya
• Tracer
• Zenyatta

They finally say that Torbjorn will be getting a new skin, emote, and highlight intro. If this upcoming holiday event follows Overwatch's previous ones, then the start of the event will be December 13th and last for three weeks.

What do you want to see as Overwatch's holiday game mode? What skins would you like to see the heroes getting? Let us know in the comments!