The gift giving time may be over, butOverwatchdeveloper Blizzard is not letting players enter the New Year without a little special treat. For a limited time, all Overwatch players can earn 5 loot boxes tied to theWinter Wonderland 2017 event.
Overwatchplayers don’t need to do anything special to earn the loot boxes beside log into the game anytime between now and January 1st, when the Winter Wonderland event ends. In fact, some players likely have already collected their 5 loot boxes before reading this since the promotion started on Christmas.
But for those who may have lapsed on theirOverwatchplaytime or were busy over the holidays, it is worth it to log in and collect the loot boxes. Even if you don’t plan on actually logging any hours during the last few days of Winter Wonderland, it’s better to collect free loot than let it go to waste.
There’s plenty of reason to want a few extra shots at Winter Wonderland 2017’s loot as well, with some exciting new skins added to the mix. Most will likely have their eyes on theSnow Owl Ana and the Rime Sombra skins, which are more than just slight tweaks to the characters’ natural looks. When it comes to special event skins, players tend to like the ones that completely change their expectations for how a character can look, like Zenyatta’s Cthulu skin from Halloween earlier this year.
Alongside the new skins, Winter Wonderland 2017 also brings back the snowball mode from last year’s event and adds a new one called Mei’s Yeti Hunt. In it, players take control of a bunch of Meis and try to defeat one player-controlledWinston in his Yeti skin.
Like most themed event modes, the Yeti Hunt is a playful distraction from the competitive grinding players have been doing – trying to reach as high of a rank as possible before theOverwatchseason ends. Luckily, that time to breathe a sigh of relief has already come, as Blizzard closed the competitive queue for Season 7 earlier this week.
As far as the Winter Wonderland event is concerned, it will end on January 1st, at which time the opportunity to redeem the free loot boxes will also end. Coincidentally, though, that is whenOverwatchcompetitive season 8 begins.
Overwatchis out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
