Overwatch’s Winter Wonderland update is now live

Update December 13, 2016: Overwatch’s Winter Wonderland update is now live, adding a range of skins, emotes intro videos, reworked maps and even a new mode. 

There are a range of Epic and Legendary skins new to Overwatch thanks to the Winter Wonderland update, as well as some cool emotes and other bits. King’s Row, Ecopoint Antarctica and Hanamura have also been decorated to match the theme, and you can also have a snowball fight as a bunch of Meis in a new brawl. 

Check out all the details, including images of the skins, in our Overwatch Winter Wonderland post.

Get in the Christmas spirit by escaping to an imaginary world where bills don’t exist – here’s our list of the best VR games.

Update December 12, 2016:It seems Blizzard’s Christmas event for Overwatch will be called Winter Wonderland, which is nice and seasonal.

The news comes viaReddit, who spotted something on the official Overwatch group in Russian social networkVK.com. It was the official Xmas card, just like what we got below when Blizzard revealed the date for the event, but the name ofthe gif– ‘«OW_WinterWonderland_Postcard-Facebook_RU_RU_640x459.gif»’ – was a dead giveaway.

Elsewhere, some more new character interactions have also been uncovered. Here are some highlights, also from Reddit:

D.Va and Soldier: 76

McCree and D.Va

McCree and Genji

McCree and Junkrat

Mei and McCree

Mei and Zarya

Genji and Winston

Mercy and McCree

Pharah and McCree

Pharah and Torbjorn

Soldier: 76 and Mei

Sombra and Tracer

Winston and Soldier: 76

Zarya and D.Va

Zarya and Torbjorn

Zarya and Winston

Update December 6, 2016:Blizzard have revealed the launch date of their holiday season update for Overwatch, with the Christmas festivities beginning from December 13.

Expect plenty of winter-themed skins as well as some other festive fun, just like we had with Halloween. Map tweaks, game modes, music, costumes and more are expected.

Blizzard revealed the news in a tweet:

You're invited! pic.twitter.com/MQZPZOW4Y1

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) 6 December 2016

Update December 3, 2016:Overwatch players have been busy trying to peek into the Christmas present Blizzard have prepared for them by datamining file references for the season holiday event of the year. What they’ve found so far are new map references, including a potential game mode, menu music and which characters are getting festive costumes.

The files references, dug out by a Facepunch forumite, reveal enough information to suggest that there will be a Junkenstein’s Revenge-like event with a specialised map, as well as between one and three Christmas-themed maps in the same way Hollywood got spookified for Halloween.

On the cosmetic side of things, everyone gets a spray, voice line, and victory pose as in the Halloween event, but again only a select few will get dressed up for the holiday.

Overwatch Christmas skins, emotes and highlight intros

The characters getting at least one skin, emote or highlight intro will be *drumroll*: Widowmaker, Reinhardt, Mercy, Symmetra, Reaper, Sombra, Roadhog, D.Va, Ana, Soldier: 76, and Lúcio.

In addition, the heroes receiving two of those cosmetics are Winston, McCree, Mei, Pharah, Zarya, Tracer, and Zenyatta. However Torbjorn is getting all THREE, almost certainly crowning him The King of Christmas. Maybe a few of the others will play more pivotal roles in the event the same way Reaper, Mercy, Junkrat and Roadhog did at Halloween? We’ll find out soon as Kjasi suspects December 13 will be the launch date of the event, with a three-week span ending on January 3.

Original story November 28, 2016: It’s almost Christmas, so that means it’s nearly time for new Overwatch skins, voice lines and cosmetics.

With that in mind, people have been feeling their presents, squeezing and shaking them to try unearth what’s beneath. Datamining. People have been datamining. And you know what? The cheeky scamps have only bloody gone and found some stuff! One of the biggest finds is a Christmassy theme, filled with all the jingles, jangles and bells one could ever wish for. Have a listen below:

Overwatch Christmas musical theme

There are also a bunch of new voice lines, many of them for the new hacker hero, Sombra. Blizzard lead writer Michael Chu did promise there were some being put together, so maybe these are what he meant.

“We have some pre-match interactions for [Sombra] in the works (as well as some for other characters as well),” he said in a post yesterday.

Here are a few of the best:

Tracer and Sombra

Sombra and Tracer

Ouch!

D.Va and Sombra

Sombra and Zarya

Reaper and Sombra

Sombra and Genji

What are your favourites? Let us know in the comments. You can also check out a few more over on Reddit, along with some new sound effects.