Overwatch’s 2nd Year Anniversary event was added to Overwatch along with the major 1.24 patch on May 22nd. This event will be held for 3 weeks, from May 22nd to June 11th.

You can obtain a total of 60 cosmetics including 8 legendary skins such as Formal Doomfist, Sherlock McCree, Shieldmaiden Brigitte, etc; 3 epic skins, new 3 dance emotes, and more. You can also obtain past limited event-only cosmetics either by unlocking them with credits or obtaining them randomly from the golden loot boxes.

Also, upon logging in, you will be given a free golden loot box, which has a 100% chance of giving you a non-repeated legendary skin. You can obtain an extra golden loot box for every 50 loot boxes you purchase.

Also, a new Deathmatch map, Petra, has been added; Petra is an ancient ruin excavated by archaeologists where you will some find jump pads, same as in Oasis or Château Guillard, and a special gimmick such as the decayed bridge collapsing across the map. Just like Château Guillard, the game will end once a player successfully gets 20 kills, and the players placed from 1st to 4th based on their kill scores will be considered winners.

Additionally, Competitive FFA Deathmatch for 8 players has been added. 8 players playing in the Competitive FFA Deathmatch will randomly play in either Château Guillard or Petra, and will be given SR after 10 placement games, just like Competitive Play. After the season ends, you will obtain Competitive Points and season reward sprays based on your tier.

Also, you can enjoy all the past arcade modes during the event; different arcade modes such as Lúcioball, Junkenstein’s Revenge, Yeti Hunter, etc. will be available and changed every day.

There have been hero balances in the 1.24 patch; the amount of Ana’s ammo for her Biotic Rifle has been increased from 10 to 14, and the projectiles will now pass through allies with full health, healing others or inflicting damage on enemies. Ana is expected to be able to heal much more in crowded combat through this buff.

Both Brigitte and Hanzo, who have been had much influence over the current meta, have received nefs; Brigitte’s Rally will now provide 100 maximum armor instead of 150 and her main skill, Shield Bash, will now have a 6-second cooldown instead of 5. Hanzo’s Storm Arrows, which have been dealing powerful damage, will now inflict 70 instead of 80 damage per arrow.

Other than that, the new Escort map, Rialto, will be now available in Competitive Play, and several changes and bug fixes have been made such as Ana being able to use Nano Boost on herself in FFA Deathmatch.

You can read more details in the following 1.24 patch note.

※ PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

New Seasonal Event: Overwatch Anniversary 2018

Celebrate Overwatch’s two-year anniversary with a new FFA (free-for-all) Deathmatch map—Petra—and more than 190 Anniversary items (60+ new for 2018), including eight legendary skins: Stealth Bastion, Shieldmaiden Brigitte, Formal Doomfist, Buccaneer Junkrat, Sherlock McCree, Forest Spirit Orisa, Magician Symmetra, and Cybjörn Torbjörn. Did you miss an item from a previous event? Throughout Overwatch Anniversary, you’ll be able to unlock items from past seasonal events with credits (and opening Anniversary Loot Boxes)!

Many of our past seasonal brawls will be available to play in the Arcade, and the brawl of the day will rotate throughout the event.

As a bonus this year, each Anniversary Loot Box can contain items from past seasonal events! You’ll also get one Legendary Anniversary Loot Box, with at least one guaranteed legendary item, just for logging in to the game during the event.

Thank you all so much for spending the last two years playing Overwatch with us, and we look forward to celebrating with you in-game!

New Map: Petra

A group of archaeologists have begun an excavation and preservation project among the ruins of Petra, a new FFA (free-for-all) Deathmatch map that puts all heroes on their own, facing off against one another until one hero scores enough eliminations to win the match. Take in Petra’s majestic views, from high vistas to twisting passageways and deep caverns. Travel along deadly cliffs, but be careful to not fall off! A dilapidated bridge stretches across the map, and the ground underneath it can crumble away into a lethal pit (with a little firepower). Hopping on a green jump pad will boost you up to Petra’s higher levels and unlock new strategic possibilities for you. . . .

New Competitive Play Mode: FFA Deathmatch

Petra and Château 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.

※ 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 PLAY 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

Fixed a bug that caused the player’s camera to zoom into Reinhardt’s Rocket Hammer when struck by it

Fixed a bug that caused Soldier: 76’s jacket collar to clip into his shoulder with his Classic skin equipped

Fixed a bug that prevented Sombra’s laser sight from tapering at its end with her Talon skin equipped

Fixed a bug that caused Symmetra’s hard-light prism visual effects to deform into a sphere on the

Hero Select screen

Fixed a bug that caused Symmetra’s Teleporter and Shield Generator to self-destruct when placed against certain walls

Fixed a bug that caused Tracer’s Recall to appear jittery for spectators, in highlights, and in replays

Fixed a bug that made Torbjörn’s turret lose sync with his breathing animation in his Medal victory pose

Fixed a that caused Widowmaker’s crosshair to disappear for a moment when unscoping

Fixed a bug that caused Winston’s shoulder to dislocate after using an emote

Fixed a bug that caused Winston’s Jump Pack to stop short of its full distance when clearing ledges

Maps

Fixed a bug that caused projectiles shot at Attacker spawn room doors to slide upward

Fixed a bug that prevented the payload marker from appearing before the game started

Fixed a bug that caused players in the first Defender spawn room to make water splashing noises

Fixed a bug that prevented the payload thrusters from turning red when reversing

Fixed a bug that caused Genji’s Cyber-agility and Hanzo’s Wall Climb animations to loop and stutter when scaling walls

Fixed a bug that caused Doomfist to clip through the environment during his Combo highlight

Fixed an issue that allowed players to get a Play of the Game by killing gondoliers in Rialto

Fixed a bug that prevented the heal icon from displaying on with the first Defender spawn room

Fixed a bug that allowed defenders to see attacker spawn entrances