Greetings, boys and ghouls, to an overview of this year’s Halloween Terror in Overwatch! Halloween, as we all know, is the best holiday, and Blizzard’s hero-shooter always knows how to throw one hell of a spooktacular! So let’s dig right into this year’s event, and see what delights we can exhume – we’ve even made a checklist for you to keep track of it all, located at the end of the article!

 

Event

Dr. Junkenstein’s Revenge returns this year. Once again, the Lord of Castle Adlersbrunn calls upon the heroes to thwart the Mad Doctor and his allies’ attempts to storm the castle. The player may pick from one of several heroes – McCree, Soldier: 76, Hanzo, Ana, Torbjörn, Zenyatta, Genji, Widowmaker or (for the first time) Brigette – and face waves of enemies, with the ultimate goal of surviving all waves and saving Castle Adlersbrunn. Each wave will have ‘Zomnics’ – robotic undead of Dr. Junkenstein’s creation – and some will feature bosses. These will consist of Dr. Junkenstein himself (Junkrat), his Creation (Roadhog), the Witch (Mercy), the Summoner (Symmetra) the Reaper (Well, Reaper), though there are some new additions you might want to keep an eye out for…The game is considered won on Wave 12, but bonus waves will continue until Wave 15. Should all heroes fall, Adlersbrun – and the game itself – is lost.

Adlersbrunn is a dark fantasy modification of the castle gate part of the Eichenwalde map – unlike that map, there are no bottomless pits, nor health packs to pick up.

 

Map Changes

In addition to the usual festive looks the Eichenwalde and Hollywood maps get this time of year, Château Guillard has also had a major overhall. Here are some images we took as a preview; I guess we know where Dr. Junkenstein’s lair is now, huh?

There’s other little gems, like a dining room filled with floating candles, and a witch’s workshop, but we have to leave some stuff for you guys to discover.

 

Skins

In addition to the previous years’ event skins, players have the opportunity to unlock or buy a variety of new looks certain to set your opponent’s hair on end!

Doomfist (or should I say, Doomfish?) uppercuts out of the lagoon sporting the Swamp Monster skin. This amphibious attire fully converts the Talon leader into a true fish man, ala The Creature of the Black Lagoon, or The Shape of Water, with even a full set of gills alongside his ribs. Certainly not what you want to come across on a rainy night!

Pharah, the ever vigilant guardian of the sky, is nowhere to be found this Halloween Event! Instead, we have the Enchanted Armour, a full set of gear imbued with some clearly potent magic! A mesh between Western and Arabic designs, this glowing iron suit can move, fly around, and shoot missiles…it’s so uncanny in its abilities, infact, it’s almost as if it’s possessed. Hmm…perhaps Pharah’s absence isn’t so strange after all…

Newcomer Wrecking Ball (Hammond) dons his first major event skin as the monstrous Jack O’Lantern! It seems whatever infected poor Hayseed Junkrat has taken root in our beloved hamster, too; evil yellow eyes, a warped sack-like head, and an obviously nefarious pumpkin mech, it’s clear a new evil stalks through the cornfields (and occasionally nibbles an ear or two).

And Moira, ruthless scientist, has also seen a…shall we say, evolution? Whether an experiment taken too far, or an emergence of something hiding within her Celtic genes, she has emerged as the mythological Banshee. Though tis not by wail or moan she fortells the death of others, but by her own actions – life is all give and take, and Moira’s syphoning beams certainly love to take…

Sombra and Soldier: 76 also get in on the action. Sombra dons a look worth dying for as the Bride, inspired by the Bride of Frankenstien. A lovely mash of wedding attire and Sombra’s traditional look! Soldier seems to have fallen under Reaper’s dark sway – looking like a classic 80’s film villain, the now otherworldly and menacing Slasher: 76 looks like he’s out for blood!

Whilst that is it for this year’s premium skins, there is still more; Widowmaker gains a more spider-inspired look befitting her patient hunting nature, and McCree returns from the dead to carry on his sense of justice, too.

And to finish us off, Mei comes dressed in a pumpkin-themed version of her regular outfit; how cute!

 

Other Unlockables

There are, of course, more than skins to get! Every year there’s also new voicelines for each character, and event unique sprays and player icons. But whilst those are all well and good, it’s the emotes, poses, and cinematics that take our fancy…

Emote

Only one Emote this time: Bastion, who – inspired by his Zomnic brethren in the season’s events – shuffles along like a zombie. He drags his food carelessly along the ground, an eeiry scrape echoing as he does…and on a lighter note, Ganymede plays along and shuffles alongside him. Creepy, cute..? Why not ‘Cr-ute’?

Victory Poses

Did somebody say ‘Pumpkin’? Because Blizzard seems to have heard you!

Joining the cast of Pumpkin wielders is Brigette, sporting a pumpkin on a stick as opposed to her wrench. Did she accidentally jam a tool in it? Was this intentional? At any rate, she seems rather amused by it all, smiling and whacking the pumpkin into her hand in a very unintimidating manner.

D.Va joins the patch in typical D.Va style – why just pose with a pumpkin, after all, when you can pose, take a selfie, and upload it to Instagram to delight your thousands of fans?

Mercy holds a pumpkin in her arms in a gentle, caring manner, but it’ll be into the cauldron before you know it.

Moira seems to be conducting an experiment of some kind on hers – unlike the other pumpkins, hers opens and closes its mouth in a silent scream, and there’s no illumination within. Hmmm…

Hammond’s pumpkin victory pose is, of course, incredibly cute. Unable to help himself, our genius rodent friend is busy nibbling away at the top of his Jack O’Lantern. What a nice, animated pose.

And last (but not least) we have Doomfist. He’s holding his between his fists; something tells me that pumpkin doesn’t have much of a future ahead of it.

 

POTG Cinematics

Brigette gets a really awesome cinematic, in which she rams the POV with her shield, making them double over and look away, before the camera pans back and she whacks us with her flail. It really is a perfect Brigette cinematic, but to be honest, it’s a little odd it’s a part of the Halloween event. But then again, she can be pretty frightening in the hands of the right players!

Winston is using his knowledge on electricity for an interesting purpose – namely, to animate a pumpkin! The cinematic begins with Winston looking at the pumpkin in his hand, before pulling out and pressing a button – electricity pulses throughout the pumpkin, which then launches into the air with a cackle, much to the gorilla scientist’s delight.

 

The Checklist

Sometimes with these events, it’s hard to keep track of what you have and haven’t gotten around to yet – so to help, we’ve made a handy little checklist, just for you! Just download the image, and you can fill it in using any Paint or image editing program you like. Easy peezy, eyeball squeezy!

 

 

And that wraps up our coverage of the Halloween event this year. Don’t forget that, in addition to these fun and games, Torbjörn received a bit of a re-work too! Have a frightfully fun time, everyone!