The Overwatch Lunar New Year 2019 event is now live. This event celebrates the Year of the Pig as part of the Lunar New Year traditionally celebrated by Asian cultures. As with previous years, the Capture The Flag game mode has returned. A new addition for this mode is nighttime versions of two portions of Busan, D.Va's home map.
As with most events, a bunch of new cosmetics have arrived! Let's take a look at the new goodies in the Overwatch Lunar New Year 2019 event!
Overwatch Lunar New Year 2019 Cosmetics
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The crop of new Overwatch Lunar New Year 2019 skins are largely centered around the classic Chinese tale Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Many of the game's heroes have taken on roles of legendary generals from the epic story that's well-familiar to fans of Dynasty Warriors. The sole exception appears to be Orisa who has gotten decked out in the guise of an Asian-themed lion.
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A couple of new emotes have made their way into the game as well. Ana tosses up some oversized Yut Nori sticks into the air and celebrates after cheerfully yeeting the traditional game pieces. As for Soldier: 76, he sneakily takes out a rattle drum and plays with it for a bit before hurriedly putting it away.
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Last (but not least, we have six new victory poses for players to enjoy. These continue the Lunar New Year event's tradition of having characters pose with fireworks.
That's it for the cosmetics! Of course, the Overwatch Lunar New Year 2019 event has some actual changes to the game in store too!
Overwatch Lunar New Year 2019 Patch
Along with the shiny new skins, a patch has gone through which has activated the Overwatch Lunar New Year 2019 event and made only three documented changes to the game's heroes:- Brigitte's Rally Ultimate buff now lasts for a maximum of 30 seconds. That's right, no more permanent armor!
- D.Va has had the cooldown for her Defense Matrix increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.
- Reaper's The Reaping life steal has increased from 30% of damage dealt to 50%.
In terms of maps, we received an overhauled version of portions of Busan for Capture The Flag. Only the Downtown (pictured in our header) and Sanctuary sections got special nighttime modes with Lunar New Year theming.
There's one final important note about this patch, best displayed in this tweet from the official Overwatch League account:
https://twitter.com/overwatchleague/status/1085996125692125185
That's right, this is the patch that the pros will be using for the entirety of Stage 1 of the Overwatch League. With the exception of emergency fixes, the league sticks to a single patch for the entire duration of a Stage. The Overwatch League is set to return with its second season on February 14, 2019.
We got some pretty cool new skins this time around with a disturbing number of beards added into the mix! You can hop into Overwatch right now and play the Lunar New Year event to your heart's content until its conclusion on February 18, 2019. Be sure to check out the event's page for more details!
What do you think of the new skins in the Overwatch Lunar New Year 2019 event? Are you looking forward to the return of Capture the Flag? What do you think of the balance changes? Let us know in the comments below!
