The Good, The Bad, The Animated: Overwatch’s Winter Wonderland Event

Hey Everyone!

What got me really in the holiday spirit last month? Well yes, the usual hot coco, holiday traditions, and…. Overwatch? YUP! Blizzard teased a Winter event for Overwatch in November and the hype intensified! With the success of Overwatch’s Halloween event, excitement was definitely high for Winter Wonderland. The Winter Wonderland event ran from December 13th to January 3rd with new skins, new goodies, holiday loot boxes, a snowball brawl, and two map make overs. Overall the Winter Wonderland was a success, however, it had its good, bad, and animated parts!

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The Good

• Epic Skins, Torb’s  Santaclad Legendary Skin, Tracer’s Jingle Legendary Skin

– The Epic  (Purple CR 750) skins were a very pleasant surprise! I mean, who doesn’t love a Rudolph Roadhog? Along with the Roadhog skin came very impressive epic skins for Pharah, Reaper, Lucio, and Sombra. The only small disappointment from the epic skins patch was the Zarya skin. This is mainly because Zarya already had a very similar skin with basically added camo and frosted hair. My favorite epic skin however was the awesome Scrooge McCree skin! Not only did it fit in the event perfectly, but also the detail of the skin  made it almost a borderline legendary skin. On the topic of legendary skins, another two good notes from the winter event were the Tracer and Torb legendary skins (Orange CR 3000). It was leaked very early that Torb would be receiving a Santa skin. Although the skin was a very nice skin, since it was leaked early by Overwatch it lost a little excitement to it once released. Tracer received a jingle skin that I thought was very fitting. I think the only reason Tracer’s skin ends up in the good and not animated section is because of how many legendary skins she has received. Tracer now has 7 legendary skins, 3 of which arrived via events. I was fine with it, I mean she is cover character for the game! My friends though thought other characters who haven’t received any legendary skins via events should have received one over her (Cough D.VA cough). Taking their opinion into account I decided to fit it into the good category.

• Hanamura

-Hanamura’s Snow makeover was another good note from the winter event. It actually made me not mind playing on Hanamura. ( I joke, but not really :)) Although it was a simple makeover compared to King’s Row, it still gave off a nice holiday vibe.

•  Winter Goodies

-Overall I thought all the winter goodies from winter loot boxes were nice additions. I’ll call out the only bad one pretty soon here, however overall Blizzard gave us awesome goodies. The ornament sprays were nice touches for each character that you could spray onto a Christmas tree in certain spawns. Zarya’s mystery gift emote was a funny addition to her ( just the cost of Cr 3000 was a little crazy). Symmetra received a nice Snowflake highlight intro along with receiving her re-work (finally!). Although the toast victory poses that were given to certain characters was nice, my favorite winter victory pose was Mercy’s Mistletoe victory pose. I thought Mercy’s victory poses were a little limited before the Mistletoe pose released. It felt the goodies from winter loot boxes were just as good as the Halloween goodies from the Halloween event.

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The Bad

• Mei’s “Legendary” Skin

-The topic my friends and I talked about the most leading up to Winter Wonderland was the question of whether Mei would receive a skin. It was definitely time for Mei to receive a legendary skin. Mei and Winston were the only characters left out without an event skin before Winter Wonderland. The hype for Mei finally receiving a legendary skin was definitely high. The hype may(..mei..XD) be the main reason why her Christmas legendary was a bit of a let down. It basically was a reskin of her epic skins with a Santa hat. The only legendary aspect of the skin was her icicle she goes into to heal turns into a snowman. I was honestly just happy Mei finally was shown some love from Blizzard. However, the fan base was so displeased, the president of Overwatch had to come out with a statement about it. As much as I love Mei (even though she’s probably not one of my best heroes) the skin was a little disappointing.

• Snowball Brawl

-I know, I’m just roasting Mei in the bad section. Both of which weren’t really her fault. The hype for the skin was to blame for the first disappointment. However, the snowball brawl was the more important disappointment. Yes, their is no doubt in my mind Mei will be redeemed with an awesome legendary skin soon. However, Blizzard for the first time took a step backwards with the snowball brawl. The main culprit to blame for this one? Junkenstein’s Revenge. The Halloween event’s brawl Junkenstein’s Revenge gave us the first taste of a PVE (player versus environment) game mode in Overwatch. And man was it fun! A lot of the Overwatch community was hoping Blizzard would build on the success of Junkenstein’s Revenge in the Winter Wonderland event. Well instead, we were given a PVE snowball fight that was fun the first three times playing it. Again, not Mei’s fault. Blizzard made its first little back step here, but I’m sure they’ll go back to the drawing board to make a greater brawl for next event. Think about it, the game is almost 8 months old. It took them almost a full 8 months to have a misstep. Next brawl I’m sure they’ll step it up.

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The Animated

• Winston’s Yeti Skin, Zenyatta’s Nutcracker Skin

-Finally, FINALLY, FINALLY, Winston was not forgotten in an event. After basically being ignored the first two events, Winston was finally shown some love with an out-of-the-park legendary skin. Well done Blizzard, you nailed this one! The funny side of this, I don’t even play Winston. However, when Winston is the character that greets you every time you start up the game, you can’t help but root for the guy. Another character that was shown some love with a legendary skin was Zenyatta. I thought Zenyatta’s nutcracker skin was perfect for him. Although it was a little freaky to me at first, throughout the event the skin definitely grew to one of my top three favorite skins of Winter Wonderland.

• Widowmaker’s Mistletoe Highlight Intro

– Any time we are given an event in Overwatch, most of the excitement goes to new skins and a new brawl. Despite this, their is always one character goodie that is not a skin that makes for an awesome surprise. Junkrat’s Summer Sports shot-put highlight intro. Ana’s Halloween Candy emote. Well for Winter Wonderland, in my opinion, Widowmaker’s Mistletoe Highlight intro was the greatest non-skin goodie. Here is a quick look at it:

It just screams Widowmaker’s personality! XD

• King’s Row

– Yes, the skins and goodies were great holiday gifts. But you can’t say the vibe King’s Row makeover gave off didn’t put you in the holiday spirit. The first couple times my friends and I played the map, we just looked around the map in awe. It was the highpoint of the event that gave off the biggest holiday vibe. The payload was a sleigh! The map makeover was one of the reasons I spent so much time playing Winter Mystery Heroes. (I mean the loot boxes were a nice incentive as well.) I must say, this was definitely a step up from Hollywood’s Halloween makeover. Blizzard is moving in the right direction on this front!

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To sum up, the Winter Wonderland was another great success. It had its small disappointments, but I feel the good outweighed the bad. The Winter Wonderland event was right on par with the successful Halloween event. Looking forward, I’m sure Winter Wonderland and Halloween event gave Blizzard a lot of feedback on exactly what the community wants to see more of. Here’s to the next awesome Overwatch event!

The rumor is of a possible Chinese New Year Event!

We’ll have to wait and see! 🙂

-Animated

 

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