Everything You Need to Know About ‘Overwatch' Halloween

Overwatch officially launched its second seasonal event to celebrate the spookiest time of the year: Halloween. With it comes new skins and more, but only for a limited time.

Aptly titled Halloween Terror, the new event is just like the Summer Games — bringing a unique cooperative brawl and plenty of Halloween-themed goodies for players to get their hands on during the next few weeks. There’s also been a visual overhaul to the Hollywood map, filling it with themed movie posters and decorations to celebrate Halloween.

Currently, the update is live on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Here’s everything you need to know:

Dr. Junkenstein’s Revenge

The highlight of Overwatch’s Halloween event is the new cooperative brawl, Junkenstein’s Revenge. Here, you’ll be teaming up with three buddies for the first cooperative experience in Overwatch to take down Dr. Jamison Junkenstein; Junkenstein’s Monster, the Reaper; the Witch; and a horde of shambling zomnics.

During each match, you’ll get the chance to take on the role of the Alchemist (Ana), the Archer (Hanzo), the Gunslinger (McCree), or the Soldier (Soldier 76) to defend the gates of Aldersbrunn castle with your comrades. The brawl lasts roughly five minutes and pits you against waves of enemy zomnics along with four boss encounters against characters with Halloween-themed skins.

What’s great is the entire experience is themed like a classic horror film; complete with a black-and-white introduction from the 1930s, an announcer with a deep voice to recount the tale of Junkenstein, and all of the traditional Halloween set pieces you’d expect to find present. Honestly, it’s astounding how much detail Blizzard put into the brawl considering Overwatch is traditionally a PvP experience.

Even though it’s a PvE experience, Junkenstein’s Revenge doesn’t let you make it through without a few bumps and bruises. While Easy and Medium difficulty are relatively painless, Hard is one of the most challenging things I’ve had to push through in gaming lately. Communication is key, especially because of your teams’ limited healing ability. So, if you’re looking to unlock all of the new achievements, make sure to bring a group of friends who you can communicate with.

Halloween Goodies

Just like in previous events, the new Halloween update for Overwatch has brought a new collection of profile icons, sprays, victory poses, emotes, highlight intros, and skins for you to collect. Each of these new additions are available via themed Loot Boxes which you can earn from leveling up during the seasonal event, and unlike the Summer Games, every box is guaranteed to have at least one Halloween item within.

The four major skins included in the new update are all legendary and themed after one of the bosses present in Junkenstein’s Revenge. You’ve got a Dr. Junkenstein skin for Junkrat, Junkenstein’s Monster for Roadhog, Pumpkin for Reaper, and the Witch for Mercy, each complete with a unique weapon appearance as well.

You’ve also got a few Halloween-themed epic skins for characters who didn’t get any love during the Summer Games, such as Ana and Hanzo, along with a few excellent emotes and highlight intros with characters busting out of coffins and carving pumpkins. My personal favorite additions have to be the R.I.P. victory poses though, which completely fit each character’s personality. Take D.Va for example, who has three lonely Doritos sitting behind her gravestone.

By popular request, Blizzard has also made all of the seasonal rewards purchasable with in-game currency for this seasonal event, but they are 3x the usual cost. That means sprays cost 75, victory poses cost 250, emotes and highlight intros cost 750, epic skins cost 750 and legendary skins cost 3000. It’s a hefty price, but it’s better than hopelessly going through Loot Boxes without getting the skin you wanted.