The Overwatch (opens in new tab) Lunar New Year event is back for 2020, celebrating the Year of the Rat with a new game mode called CTF Blitz. It's Capture the Flag—the "CTF" part probably gave that away—but the flags are much closer together than they usually are, in locations that are normally used for overtime rounds. Because of the increased action resulting from that tighter proximity, teams will need six captures to win, rather than the usual three.
Weekly challenges are back for the LNY event, giving players the opportunity to win a trio of Epic skins by winning nine games per week over the three weeks of the event. Check 'em out:
Monk Doomfist (week 1):
Ancient Chinese Bronze Winston (week 2):
Papercutting Wrecking Ball (week 3):
There will also be four new Legendary skins available during the event—Opera Brigitte, Face-Changer Sombra, Mask Dancer Moira, and Samul Nori Lucio—plus three more Epic skins, and various icons, emotes, and sprays. Cosmetics from previous Lunar New Year events will also be available for purchase with Coins, at a discounted price.
The Face-Changer Sombra skin sounds particularly interesting: Based on the Chinese dramatic art of bian lian (face-changing) in which performers wear vividly-colored masks that they change instantaneously over the course of a performance (here's an example of the real thing on YouTube (opens in new tab), and it's straight-up amazing), this skin has six different masks that change periodically, in a specific order, over the course of a match. You can see it in action in the trailer above.
The Overwatch Lunar New Year event for 2020 is live now (or will be very soon, depending on what sort of kickoff troubles may pop up) and runs until February 6. Details are up at playoverwatch.com (opens in new tab), and you can see some of those new cosmetics below.
