Seasonal events

Seasonal events are annual events in Overwatch and Overwatch 2. During events, a custom brawl mode is added to the Arcade, and players can earn limited-time cosmetics by completing challenges. There are currently six annual Overwatch events in total.

Events

Summer Games

Summer Games 2021 announcement poster

The Summer Games was the first seasonal event in Overwatch, introduced in July 2016. It is themed around the real-world Olympic Games, and typically runs from early to mid-August.

The Summer Games brawl is Lúcioball, a 3v3 game mode played on three custom maps where three Lúcios must knock a soccer ball into the opposing team's goal.

Halloween Terror

Halloween Terror was the second seasonal event, introduced in October 2016. It is generally held in mid-October and runs until early November. During the event, Eichenwalde and Hollywood are decorated for Halloween.

The Halloween Terror brawl is Junkenstein's Revenge, a PvE mode played on a Halloween-themed Eichenwalde where 4 players must defend the castle gates against Dr. Junkenstein's Zomnic army.

Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland was the third seasonal event, introduced in December 2016. It is generally run from mid-December until early January. The event celebrates the start of winter and various real-world winter holidays, with cosmetics generally themed around Christmas.

Yeti (Winston) in the seasonal event, Yeti Hunt

During the event, King's Row, Hanamura, and Blizzard World are decorated for winter.

• The Winter Wonderland event has two brawls:
  • Mei's Snowball Offensive, a 5v5 Mei-only version of team deathmatch played on Ecopoint: Antarctica.
  • Yeti Hunt, a 5v1 game played on Nepal: Village in which a team of five Hunters (Mei) must kill the enemy Yeti (Winston) before he eats all the meat (collects all of the objectives around the map).

Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year was the fourth seasonal event, introduced in January 2017. The event celebrates the real-world Chinese New Year, and is generally held in late January to early February. During each event, Lijiang Tower is decorated for the Lunar New Year.

Each year, the Lunar New Year cosmetics and overall event theme changes based on the Chinese Zodiac. The themes to date are as follows:

• 2017: Year of the Rooster
• 2018: Year of the Dog
• 2019: Year of the Pig
• 2020: Year of the Rat
• 2021: Year of the Ox
• 2022: Year of the Tiger
• 2023: Year of the Rabbit
• 2024: Year of the Dragon

The Lunar New Year brawl is Capture the Flag (CTF), a slightly modified 5v5 version of the same real-world game. It is played on a variety of different Control maps. During the Year of the Dog, Ayutthaya was added to the game as a CTF-only map.

Overwatch Archives

The four heroes played in Retribution (2018)

Archives was the fifth seasonal event, introduced in April 2017 and last run in 2021. The event released a series of PvE game modes to the Arcade in which 4 players participated in a mission from the Overwatch lore. There were 3 missions released in total:

• Uprising (2017), played on a version of King's Row that has been overtaken by Null Sector.
• Retribution (2018), played on Rialto.
• Storm Rising (2019), played on Havana.

In 2020 and 2021, all three missions were available during the event, but had additional challenges and modifiers that players could choose from.

Overwatch Anniversary

Anniversary was the sixth seasonal event, introduced in May 2017. It is an event that celebrates Overwatch's release. In Overwatch, it ran from late May until early June to celebrate the release date of the original game. Anniversary 2023's timeframe was moved to celebrate Overwatch 2’s release date, and began on September 19th, 2023.

In Overwatch, players were able to unlock any skin from any past event by completing challenges while the event ran. In Overwatch 2, the Shop allows players to purchase skins from past Seasons that are typically locked.