Overwatch's Winter Wonderland event returns next week with a new Mei-themed mode
Plus, new skins and seasonal maps!
Overwatch's festively themed Winter Wonderland event will return next week, Tuesday December 12th, Blizzard has announced.
Winter Wonderland debuted last year, and its return promises a mix of the familiar and the new. There'll be both old and new holiday themed character skins, for instance, with Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan teasing new Legendary skins for "two of our favourite junkers" (Junkrat and Roadhog, surely) in Blizzard's announcement video below.
Kaplan also hinted at the arrival of a new, "long-awaited" Hanzo skin, previously seen in one of the Overwatch comics.
Additionally, this year's Winter Wonderland will feature a number of appropriately festive map makeovers. King's Row and Hanamura will once again be sporting their frosty good looks, and there's a new seasonal update for the Black Forest arena map too.
You'll get a good long look at the newly winter-ised Black Forest during the return of Mei's Snowball Offensive brawl. The event-exclusive mode is also playable on the Ecopoint Antarctica map, and is joined by a new "silly and ridiculous" mode known as Mei's Yeti Hunt.
Winter Wonderland's newest brawl unfolds across Overwatch's Nepal Village map and pits five Meis against one yeti-themed Winston, all controlled by different players. When a match begins, the Meis are tasked with hunting down and eliminating Winston, while he does he best to avoid detection and snaffle up as much meat as he can.
Once enough meat has been devoured, Winston's Primal Rage mode will activate and the tables will turn. From this point on, the Mei players must do everything they can to evade defeat until the game ends.
Winter Wonderland will be available on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 when it launches next Tuesday, and the full line-up of 2017 seasonal skins will likely be revealed soon.