For the past few years, hero-shooterOverwatchhas kicked off its seasonal Archives event in April. However, Blizzard has decided to launch the Archives 2020 event a month earlier than expected. As announced by Blizzard,OverwatchArchives 2020 is live from now until April 2, giving fans of the game three weeks worth of content to unlock.
Unlike past years, theOverwatchArchives event will not introduce any new story mission. This is likely due toOverwatch 2having a dedicated story mode, but it’s possible Blizzard decided to skip on lore this time around for other reasons. In any case,OverwatchArchives 2020 is still looking for new ways to keep fans engaged, this time by releasing special modifiers alongside the previously-existing missions to shake things up a bit.
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For Week 1, theOverwatchUprising mission will have variants that make it so enemies drop lava when they’re killed and players have 50% less health and increased damage. Week 2 will see changes to the Retribution mission so that only critical hits do damage to enemies and enemies can only be damaged if a player is close to them. Week 3 will change theStorm Rising missionso that no support heroes are allowed and healing is reduced, but players will be able to heal themselves by doing damage to enemies. Storm Rising will also have a modifier that makes some enemies “enraged” and killing them spreads that to nearby foes. Along with these modified versions of pastOverwatchArchives events, the regular versions will also be available.
Overwatchfans can also look forward to special weekly challenges while theOverwatchArchives 2020 event is live. By winning games, players can unlock Holi Symmetra in Week 1, Rustclad Torbjorn in Week 2, and Bear Mei in Week 3. Five additional Legendary skins and three Epic skins will also be available in loot boxes, on top of other new cosmetics like player icons, emotes, and sprays. Of course, all theArchives event cosmeticsfrom past years will also be up for grabs as usual.
TheOverwatchArchives 2020 event comes hot off the heels of theMardi Gras event, which let fans unlock holiday-themed cosmetics. Looking ahead, the next seasonal event should be the Anniversary event, which typically starts at the end of May.
WhenOverwatch 2is released, it will be interesting to see ifBlizzarddecides to mix things up with the game’s annual events. We’ll find out in the coming months.
Overwatchis out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
