Overwatch is now celebrating Lunar New Year
To celebrate the Lunar New Year next week (or you might know it as Chinese New Year), Overwatch today launches festivities including a new competitive capture the flag mode with a new map, new cosmetic items, and other shinies. Some of the new outfits are p. swish all right. The event will run until March 5th. Here, look at some of the fanciness in this trailer:
The update brings 50-odd new cosmetic items: skins; highlight intros; emotes. You can see them on Blizzard's Lunar New Year page.
Capture the Flag mode returns, this time accompanied by a Competitive Capture the Flag mode with matchmaking, leaderboards, Competitive Point rewards, and so on - like a proper serious Overwatch mode. CTF also gets a new map, Ayutthaya, set in Thailand. Blizzard have tweaked the CTF formula too, as they explain:
"Flag pickup is now instant, but flags cannot be picked up for five seconds after being dropped. Flags return after 4 seconds, and flag return is not interrupted by taking damage. Mobility and invulnerability skills drop the flag and, music plays while carrying the flag! Sudden death will now break ties at the end of a match. When time runs out, the round starts over, the flags are moved closer to the center of the map, and the first team to capture wins. All these changes will be applied to older Capture the Flag maps as well."
Today's patch also tweaks Doomfit a little, lets players select skins at the start of rounds, and fiddles with other bits. See the patch notes for full details.