The Overwatch Lunar New Year Event is back and stirring up some drama

Overwatch
February 8, 2021
Mel Hawthorne

One of the most fabulous events in Overwatch is back – the Lunar New Year celebrations. While other events have more appealing limited-time modes and special goodies, the New Year’s outfits, skins, and sprays have always included some fan favourites – and this season’s new additions are no exception to the rule.

Along with all the existing special skins returning, the year of the Ox brings with it several new designs for some of our favorite characters. And while the festive mood is among most people, some have found a bone to pick with Overwatch and Blizzard.

Overwatch Lunar New Year 2021

© PlayOverwatch

The New Stuff

Three weekly challenges will get you one skin each (as well as some icons and sprays). For week one it’s a pretty cool Terracotta Army Baptiste, for week two it’s Xiake McCree – in other words, a woven hat and armor as well as a feather cloak for everyone’s favourite Wild West character. Week 3 is the Imperial Guard Reaper skin – an epic mix of dragons, gold decorations, and just enough menace to keep Reaper fearsome.

In addition to these three Epic skins, Blizzard has also added five new Legendary skins – for Orisa, Echo, Widowmaker, Ashe, and Bastion. While they’re all pretty cool, especially Ashe and Widowmaker’s skins are likely to be fan favourites this time around.

Widow’s Pale Serpent skin is all ethereal white beauty and pink accents, while Ashe’s skin’s highlight is definitely B.O.B. – the Tiger Huntress skin naturally needs to feature a tiger, and Ashe’s much-loved companion strikes a pretty fearsome pose as a giant animatronic tiger, complete with an outfit matching Ashe’s of course.

The Symmetra skin or lack thereof seems to have triggered some people into blasting Blizzard:

Finally, existing Lunar New Year skins from previous years will also be available again, so if you missed out on popular choices like Reaper’s Lu Bu, or you still need Mercy’s Zhuque, this is your chance to fill the gaps in your skin collection. Should you decide to grab the paid-for loot boxes (and don’t forget you will earn free ones just by playing) keep an eye out for the sale – you can get a certain amount of free boxes with paid ones during the event. For example, buying 50 boxes will earn you 10 free ones as a bonus!

Getting things political

A small but vocal minority also had a bone to pick with the naming of this Overwatch event. Apparently, the event should be called Chinese New Year and not Lunar New Year. Furthermore, the mob claims that three skins for this event take elements from Korean style and not Chinese, which is in an insult to Chinese fans, as this event is mostly aimed at the Year of the Ox and aimed heavily at celebrating Chinese culture.

We tried to find a post in English from NGA/Weibo forums to share with you about this “debate” but were unable to.

Here’s a link from Theqoo instead, which is a bit easier to Google Translate if you are interested in this debate. Do keep in mind that both sides of this debate are heavily favoring their side of the argument and the link above will only give you one perspective.

Overwatch Lunar New Year Special Game Modes

Capture the Flag as well as Capture the Flag Blitz are back – both of them are playable permanently for the duration of the event. Whether you prefer the more casual normal CTF experience or the action-packed Blitz mode where the flags are that much closer together, you can play to your heart’s content.

There is a new mode being added to the Arcade rotation – Bounty Hunter! It’s essentially a game of tag – whoever gets the first kill on another player is marked the Target – and other players get Bounty Points for killing the Target. Of course, when they do, whoever lands the killing blow becomes the next target – in other words, make your choices wisely so you don’t end up hunted and backed into a corner with nowhere to go! Ultimately, whoever has the most Bounty Points wins the game, so just hiding away won’t be a viable strategy either.

Give the new mode a try – maybe while wearing one of the new outfits added to the overall Lunar New Year Collection?

Happy Year of the Ox!

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