Overwatch returning to Mei’s Winter Wonderland with new Yeti Hunt game mode

As I’m pretty certain absolutely nobody has mentioned on social media yet (because we would never do anything like gripe about the weather online, right?), Cape Town turned into Satan’s oven yesterday. I’m actually not alive right now. I died yesterday by melting into a sweaty pool, but since it’s already as hot as hell up here and Earth has cheeseburgers I figured I may as well hang around. Well, it’s a good thing I did, as I can now report that we’re headed to a Winter Wonderland!

Well, not us. We’re still being turned into KFC down here in Cape Town. I am however referring to Overwatch, Blizzard’s massively popular competitive shooter, which will be returning to Mei’s Winter Wonderland as the game’s seasonal event this Christmas. Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan made the announcement in a Developer’s Update video last night, while also revealing some other cool new details.

As with all Overwatch’s seasonal events, we will be getting new legendary skins. Kaplan didn’t want to spoil all the skins, but did reveal that Roadhog and Junkrat will definitely be getting new legendary skins while Hanzo will be getting a “long-awaited” skin that we’ve “seen before maybe in one of our comics”. Ooh, let the speculation begin! The popular Mei’s Snowball Offensive game mode will also be back for more snowy mayhem this year, and now this game type will also be available to play on a wintry reskinned Black Forest map alongside the original Antarctica Echo-Point map.

But that was not the big news though, as Kaplan went on to reveal a brand new game mode that will be introduced in Winter Wonderland. Yeti Hunt will see a team of five Mei players – with slightly different abilities – have to hunt down one player as the Yeti aka Winston on a modified Nepal Village map. The Yeti player will need to avoid the Meis and find meat stashed around the map which acts as fuel for his Primal Rage. Once he has enough and Primal Rage is activated, the Yeti goes on the offensive to try and kill the Meis who now have to survive using ice walls and traps.

I’m guessing that the Yeti will have a tweaked Winston kit and suped-up Primal Rage to ensure that he can take down five Meis. Either way, as a huge fan of asymmetrical multiplayer game modes, I’m really stoked for this as Kaplan has stated that Yeti Hunt is in no way intended to be a serious competitive mode but is designed purely for fun. There’s no word given on exactly when Yeti Hunt and the rest of Winter Wonderland will debut, but last year’s event ran from 13 December to 3 January so I’m guessing it will be about the same this time around.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go empty my fridge to turn it into a home office as that the’s the only way I’m surviving today.

Last Updated: December 8, 2017