The 2018 Overwatch Anniversary Event has kicked off. You’ve already seen some of the skins included in the 2018 Overwatch Anniversary Event thanks to leaks and teases. But, Blizzard has provided some official screens of the news duds. Three new emotes are available alongside those previously released and last year’s Anniversary skins also make a return. There are 190 Anniversary items in total. Along with the aforementioned the Overwatch Anniversary Event 2018 features the new Free-For-All Deathmatch map, Petra. Both Petra and Chateau Guillard will also be available in an optional Competitive FFA Deathmatch mode with placement matches, skill rating, leaderboards, and the opportunity to earn competitive points. Past seasonal brawls are also available to play in the Arcade. The brawl of the day will rotate throughout the event. Overwatch players will earn Anniversary Loot Boxes as they play, and can pick up one Legendary Anniversary Loot Box just by logging from May 22 – June 11. Each Legendary Anniversary Loot Box comes with at least one guaranteed legendary item and can contain loot from past seasonal events or other classic content. Anniversary Loot Boxes are also available for purchase. Watch on YouTube Along with the event, a new patch has been released and it makes changes to Hanzo, Ana, and Brigitte. Earlier this month, Overwatch’s Hanzo had his Storm Arrows projectile speed increased from 85 to 100. Today’s patch reduces damage from Storm Arrows from 80 to 70. So while they are faster, they now cause less damage. Previously, Brigitte’s Shield Bash had its cone angle reduced from 90 to 60, and from today, the cooldown will increase from 5 to 6 seconds. This patch also makes changes to Ana’s Biotic Rifle. Its projectiles will now pass through allies with full health, and ammo has been increased from 10 to 14. Full patch notes with developer commentary are below along with a look at the new map and skins. Overwatch Anniversary 2018 – Emotes, Petra Map, Skins Overwatch patch notes – May 22 Hero Updates Ana Biotic Rifle Projectiles will now pass through allies with full health Ammo increased from 10 to 14 Developer Comments: These changes should help Ana when she is trying to land clutch heals in the middle of a big fight. Allies that do not need healing will no longer potentially block shots meant for teammates that do need it. Increasing her magazine size makes it less likely that Ana will be forced into a reloading in the middle of an important fight. Brigitte Rally Maximum armor per player reduced from 150 to 100 Shield Bash Cooldown increased from 5 to 6 seconds Developer Comments: Brigitte’s ultimate is very powerful, especially when it is placed on the entire team. This change will reduce the maximum armor value of Rally, but does not reduce the overall amount of armor given by the ability over its duration. This means when used in combat while her allies are taking damage, it should feel about the same, but the lingering effects of the armor should have less of an impact. Her Shield Bash is a very strong ability on a fairly short cooldown, making it difficult for her opponents to play around. Increasing this cooldown allows for more options when battling against her. Hanzo Storm Arrows Damage reduced from 80 to 70 Developer Comments: Hanzo’s Storm Arrows are doing too much damage considering his other changes, such as Lunge and projectile speed. This damage reduction will give Hanzo’s enemies a more reasonable chance to react and fight against him while using Storm Arrows. Competitive Pay Updates Rialto Rialto is now available in Competitive Play Game Browser and Custom Games General Added Infinite Ultimate Duration and Scalable Ultimate Duration options for Moira’s Coalescence FFA Deathmatch Ana can now Nano Boost herself Bug Fixes General Fixed a bug that caused players to repeatedly return to the Hero Select screen when backfilling into a match Fixed a bug that prevented the sound wave visual effect from animating when previewing a voice line unlocked from a loot box Fixed a bug that caused a visual error to display 0/0 unlocks on the main menu Fixed a bug that caused Widowmaker to become stuck in a pillar in the Practice Range Fixed a bug that prevented the Groups tab in the Social menu from dynamically refreshing Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented shields from blocking projectiles (e.g. Tracer’s Pulse Bomb and Junkrat’s Frag Launcher) Fixed a bug that caused the camera to dip down for a frame when crouching and returning to an upright position FFA Deathmatch Fixed a bug that allowed groups to queue for Deathmatch Fixed a bug that caused Sombra to be revealed to all enemies if targeted by Hanzo’s Sonic Arrow or Widowmaker’s Infra-sight while stealthed Game Browser and Custom Game Fixed a bug that caused Moira’s Coalescence’s animation to incorrectly loop when Ultimate Duration was set above 100% Fixed a bug that caused Moira’s Coalescence SFX to stop playing after a couple of seconds when Ultimate Duration was set above 100% Fixed a bug that caused players who were idle in Assault and Skirmish game modes to be flagged as inactive and removed from the match Fixed a bug that prevented spawn resets and round start dialogue from playing when Random Heroes was enabled Fixed a bug that caused the start of match dialogue to say “Capture the enemy flag” instead of “Fight” in Team Deathmatch Fixed a bug that caused suicides to count as multiple deaths in Deathmatch when the Respawn as Random Hero option was enabled Highlights Fixed a bug that caused dialogue lines to get cut short at the end of highlights Fixed a bug that caused placement indicators to appear red in Play of the Game playbacks and highlights when they were placed on valid ground Heroes Fixed a bug that caused Ana’s Biotic Rifle crosshair to disappear momentarily when scoping and unscoping Fixed a bug causing Bastion’s Dune Buggy skin textures to stretch when waving hello Fixed a bug that caused Brigitte to reapply Repair Pack on her previous target rather than her new target if she used Repair Pack immediately after the cooldown ended Fixed a bug that caused Brigitte’s Shield Bash hitbox to be wider than her shield Fixed a bug that prevented Brigitte’s Self Healing statistic from being tracked Fixed a bug that prevented Doomfist’s hand from animating when using Hand Cannon immediately after Rocket Punch Fixed a bug that caused Hanzo’s Lunge animation to follow the direction of the first jump after changing directions on a subsequent jump Fixed a bug that caused Hanzo’s hands to float above his legs during his Meditate emote with certain skins equipped Fixed a bug that caused Hanzo’s shins to appear malformed in his Heroic victory pose with his Scion skin Fixed a bug that prevented players from modifying Hanzo’s Lunge ability cooldown time in Custom Games Fixed a bug that prevented Hanzo’s reticle from constricting when using Storm Arrows Fixed a bug that caused Lúcio’s Soundwave animation to play twice if he used his quick melee attack immediately afterward Fixed a bug that caused the hammer on McCree’s golden weapon variant to be dull with his Scrooge skin equipped Fixed a bug that caused McCree’s ankles to deform when he used his Take a Load Off emote Fixed a bug that sometimes caused frozen targets to evade attacks Fixed a bug that caused Mei’s Pajamei skin to exaggerate the curvature of her spine Fixed a bug that caused Mei’s Endothermic Blaster visual effects to go through shields Fixed a bug that caused Mercy’s wings to stretch out comically when waving hello while using Angelic Descent Fixed a bug that caused Mercy to be placed too far towards the back of the hero line up Fixed a bug that prevented Mercy’s healing and damage boosting beams from being visible the first time it’s used on a player after activating Valkyrie Fixed a bug that caused the pumpkin in Orisa’s Pumpkin Head victory pose to persist after navigating away from it in the Hero Gallery<doc-sep>Overwatch's upcoming Anniversary event may have just had all its skins leaked. Reddit user digitai1234 posted a few images to the game's subreddit that he claims were taken from a "Taiwanese Overwatch fan club" on Facebook. The images feature the Anniversary event skins, the new map Petra and a map game mode. The pictures are in Mandarin and reddit detectives aren't the most trusty translators, so we are still unsure what any of the skins English names will actually be. Here's the full album of screenshots taken directly from the unknown player's client. According to user GregoriusDaneli, here are the unofficial Chinese translations for the Anniversary event skins: Sherlock McCree Bit-rate Lucio Shield Maiden Brigitte Magician (?) Symmetra Formal Wear Doomfist Pirate Junkrat Bio Torb Dryad Orisa Stealth(?) Bastion Venom Soldier:76 There are 11 skins in total, showing off the Overwatch cast in the continued tradition of their most ridiculous costumes. The nine that have never been seen before are all Legendaries. Sherlock McCree comes equipped with a pipe and dapper jacker. Bio Torb is ready to fight the Zerg, or at least some omnics in space. Dryad Orisa might have less emotive eyes, but it doesn't make me love her any less. My favorite has to be Stealth Bastion, whose look is inspired by my favorite Transformer Decepticon Soundwave. That robot Ganymede is enough to make any Overwatch fan need that skin. There's also our first look at Petra, a Grecian battleground full of marble columns. The new "Death Match" mode will pit eight players against each other on Petra, though that's all the information we know about the mode. It will join the other limited time game modes like Lucioball and Mei's Yeti Hunt that will return during this year's Overwatch Anniversary Event. There is no concrete evidence that this leak is real. It just popped up online from a random source and could be an extremely elaborate prank. I'm willing to believe that it's legitimate, simply because of the level of quality put into all of these skins. If a fan is willing to put this much effort into a project just to troll the world, then they seriously deserve a job at Blizzard. Newsweek has reached out to Blizzard for comment about the legitimacy of this leak. We will update the story if we receive official word from the publisher. Blizzard already announced they'll release more information about the Anniversary on Saturday night's Overwatch League stream. Assistant Game Director Aaron Keller and Lead Writer Michael Chu will hit the stage to discuss what's coming in next week's event. Hopefully, we can find out what's real before the event starts on May 22.<doc-sep>Overwatch is turning two this month, and Blizzard is celebrating with another massive anniversary campaign. The special event begins today at 11 a.m. — a.k.a. right now — and with it comes a ton of new skins, a new re-release of the game and more. The Overwatch second anniversary event will run until June 11, according to Blizzard. There’s a total of 190 new anniversary items, 60 of which are new this year. These range from eight original legendary skins, new dance emotes and more. Among the other items available during the event are several pieces of older seasonal content from 2017’s limited-time modes, alongside skins from more recent brawls. Everyone gets a Legendary Anniversary Loot Box for logging into the game as well, which includes all of this older contnet. There’s also Petra, a free-for-all Deathmatch map that comes to Overwatch as part of the event. The Chateau Guillard map will also be playable in the competitive Deathmatch mode during the anniversary special. Gameplay from these, as well as many of the skins, were previously seen as part of a Taiwanese leak that eked out over the weekend. Blizzard said that it make take as much as 30 minutes for the anniversary event to begin on all platforms, so don’t worry if it’s not immediately available. For anyone who has yet to check out Overwatch, Blizzard has released a special Legendary Edition version of the game. Available on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One, the Legendary Edition is currently on sale for $39.99. The standard Overwatch is also on sale for $19.99. Both offers are available through June 4 at midnight PT. The Legendary Edition includes five epic and five legendary skins, as well as the skins from the Overwatch Origins event. Blizzard is also throwing in skins and other content based on Diablo 3, StarCraft 2, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, World of Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm. Check out all of the anniversary skins in our gallery below.<doc-sep>
These could be some of the best skins yet. All 11 new Overwatch skins have apparently been leaked. A Taiwanese Overwatch fan posted a bunch of in-game screenshots to the Taiwanese Overwatch fan club on Facebook, according to a Reddit post. The images look very real, but it’s possible that they’re really good fakes—but the quality of the images point to these being the actual skins we’re getting with the event. An Overwatch fan posted the images to Reddit this morning. The new skins include a “shield maiden” Brigitte skin—she has a bear head strapped to her back, too—along with Tuxedo Doomfist and Symmetra, Sherlock McCree, Pirate Junkrat, and Mecha Bastion. Related: The Overwatch Anniversary event will introduce a new Deathmatch map and a competitive queue Image via [Imgur](https://imgur.com/a/zUGBkeL) Image via [Imgur](https://imgur.com/a/zUGBkeL) Image via [Imgur](https://imgur.com/a/zUGBkeL) From the Overwatch screenshots posted—if they’re real—it appears that the player must have gotten early access to the new update. How could that happen? That’s unclear at this time. The Overwatch Anniversary event is scheduled to begin on May 22 and continue through June 11 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. There’s a bunch of new content coming alongside the skins; Blizzard is bringing back a select number of Overwatch brawls from past events and the skins that launched alongside them. Related: There will be an Overwatch Anniversary reveal during the OWL broadcast on Saturday A new Deathmatch map and a competitive Deathmatch playlist are also expected to go live with the event. Blizzard will be on hand at the Overwatch League tonight to give fans a sneak preview of the event—but it looks like we’ve already got it.