The new Overwatch is finally here! Winter Wonderland begins on December 12th and stays open until January 1st. Along with Mei’s Snowball Offensive from last year’s seasonal arcade mode, Yeti Hunter is now open! Additionally, Overwatch players can now get 7 Winter Wonderland themed legendary skins with emotes and highlights.

As for Yeti Hunter, it is an arcade mode in Nepal Village where 5 out of 6 players play as Mei and have to hunt down the 6th player, playing as the Yeti (Winston). The Yeti has to collect meat to fill up their rage gauge and use their ult against Mei’s.

Meanwhile, the Mei players have to hunt down Winston using their skills and their ult, which is replaced by Yeti Trap. If the number of deaths for Mei players goes over a certain amount, the game ends with Winston winning, while the game ends with the Mei players’ victory if they manage to kill Yeti.

Just like any other brawls played during the event period, Yeti Hunter will also give loot boxes as a victory reward.

As mentioned before, new legendary skins for Ana, Soldier: 76, Sombra, Bastion, Junkrat, Hanzo, and Roadhog are now available!

Also, a new Puppy emote for Orisa, and Snowflake for Zenyatta have been added along with Reinhardt’s highlight intro, Snowball Fight.

▲ New emotes were added as well.

On the technical side, an improvement has been made to the player report system along with the opening of the new event.

The report system, starting from today, will now notify the reported players with an in-game message along with warnings regarding their misconduct.

Even so, if players continue with their negative behavior and have reports built up against them, they could end up with a silence, temporary suspension, or even a permanent ban. These players may be punished even before they receive in-game messages, depending on the severity of their offense.

Furthermore, players who have made reports on other players will also get in-game notifications if the reported players receive punishment. This update is an improvement made to the report system that many Overwatch players have been asking for, and many players show positive feedback regarding the improvement.

Further details on the patch applied on December 12th can be read below.

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

New Seasonal Event: Winter Wonderland 2017

‘Tis the merriest time of year—Winter Wonderland is here!

From now until January 1, experience the holiday spirit with a brand-new brawl, Mei’s Yeti Hunt, and relive the previous Winter Wonderland’s magical moments by playing Mei’s Snowball Offensive. Players will also be able to unwrap loot boxes to collect last year’s festive fare in addition to 50 new holiday-themed cosmetics, including legendary skins like Snow Owl Ana, Avalanche Bastion, Beachrat Junkrat, Ice Fisherman Roadhog, Rime Sombra, and more.

To learn more about Winter Wonderland 2017, click here.

Player Warning Updates

Several changes have been made to the player report system.

Players being reported will receive an in-game message letting them know that they have been reported, along with a warning concerning continued negative behavior. Ongoing misconduct will result in silence, suspension, or a permanent ban, depending on the severity of the infraction (in severe cases, players may receive their punishment before receiving the initial in-game message).

Players who report someone for poor behavior, resulting in a disciplinary action, will now be notified with an in-game message when the issue has been resolved. We take every report seriously, along with your feedback. Thank you for your patience as we continue to fine tune these systems.

GAME BROWSER AND CUSTOM GAMES

General

Added an option that allows heroes to spawn with fully charged ultimate abilities. This can be enabled under Settings > Heroes > General > Spawn with Ultimate Ready when creating a custom game

Added an option that allows heroes to cast ultimate abilities that last for the full duration of a match. This can be enabled under Settings > Heroes > General > Infinite Ultimate Duration when creating a custom game

A.I.

[PC] An option to “Remove All A.I.” in the custom game lobby can be accessed by Right Click > Remove All Bots

[PS4/XB1]A.I. players can be removed from within the custom game lobby by selecting a bot, then selecting “Remove All Bots” from the submenu

HERO GALLERY

General

Players can now clear new item notifications with the “Mark All As Seen” button in the Hero Gallery

BUG FIXES

General

Fixed an issue that caused the arcade card for Limited Duel and Mystery Duel to not list all currently disabled characters

[PC] Fixed an issue that prevented certain sound effects from playing when navigating the Options menu with a controller

Fixed a bug in Elimination mode that caused players to spawn as a random hero at the start of a match instead of the one that was highlighted

A.I.

Fixed a bug that caused Roadhog Bot to get stuck in the spawn room of the Oasis: City Center stage

Heroes

Fixed a visual bug that caused Ana’s Biotic Rifle ammo clip to detach when her Captain Amari skin was equipped

Fixed a bug that prevented Doomfist’s Rocket Punch from destroying objects

Fixed a bug that caused Doomfist’s Rocket Punch to not always deal damage when an enemy hits a wall

Fixed a bug that caused Doomfist’s Rocket Punch to not always stop an enemies' movement when they impact a wall

Fixed an issue that canceled Doomfist’s Seismic Slam when it was unable to reach the targeted location

Fixed an issue that caused Doomfist’s Seismic Slam to trigger instantly when the ability was used to travel up inclines

Fixed a bug that caused Doomfist’s Seismic Slam to create performance drops when repeatedly used with no cooldown

Fixed an issue that caused D.Va’s Micro Missiles to not destroy breakable objects

Added green detail textures on Sparrow Genji's sword scabbard when the golden weapon variant is equipped

Fixed a bug that prevented Hanzo’s Storm Bow reload from canceling if he used a melee attack after using his wall climbing ability

Fixed a bug that prevented Mei’s Cryo-freeze from clearing the healing debuff caused by Ana’s Biotic Grenade

Fixed a bug that caused Mercy’s Caduceus Blaster reload to be canceled if the player pressed the Resurrect keybind without a target to Resurrect

Fixed a bug that showed Mercy’s Guardian Angel targeting UI on allies while it was already in progress on a selected target

Fixed a bug that allowed a Mercy player to cast Resurrect on a player that was in the process of being resurrected by another Mercy

Fixed a bug that allowed Moira’s Biotic Orb to pass through terrain and structures

Fixed an issue that prevented players from using Moira’s Biotic Orb’s regeneration option when primary fire was disabled

Fixed a visual bug with Moira’s Biotic Orb that sometimes caused Biotic Grasp’s healing spray effects to display instead

Fixed a bug that prevented Moira’s Coalescence from healing an allied Reaper in Wraith Form

Fixed a bug that prevented Moira from being able to pass through enemies when using Fade

Fixed a bug that caused Moira’s eyelashes to detach from her face during her Heroic highlight intro

Fixed an issue that prevented Moira’s self-healing statistic from being collected and displayed in the game stats

Fixed a visual issue with Moira’s Oasis skin that caused her knees to clip through her knee guards while crouched

Fixed a bug that caused Reaper’s shotguns to animate incorrectly when discarded on the ground

Fixed a bug that sometimes allowed Reinhardt’s Charge to escape abilities that should prevent movement (e.g. Zarya’s Graviton Surge)

Fixed a bug that prevented Widowmaker’s Grappling hook from pulling players to moveable objects, even when they were stationary (e.g. the window on the Eichenwalde Castle doors)

Fixed an issue that prevented highlights captured by Zenyatta players from recording correctly when the Cultist skin was equipped

Maps

Fixed an issue that allowed some heroes to hide on the Junkertown payload when using sit emotes

Fixed a bug that caused a performance drop when players shot at the gold coin piles in the last Defender spawn of Junkertown