Winter Wonderland 2019 brings new game mode, shelves Skirmish

The holiday season has arrived once again and Overwatch is bringing the festivities with the biggest installment of the Winter Wonderland event yet. Winter Wonderland 2019 features three unique game modes, seven new winter-themed skins, and an all new intermediary mode that will be sticking around after the holidays come to a close.

Mei’s Snowball Offensive and Yeti Hunter are making a return during this limited event. A brand new game mode, Snowball Deathmatch, will be joining the others for this year’s celebration.

Eight players will take control of the hero Mei and duel one another in a snowy free-for-all. Every player can carry a maximum of three lethal snowballs in Mei’s blaster unlike the Snowball Offensive in which players can only carry one.

Players can earn rewards by playing Overwatch’s new wintery game mode.

Some Winter Wonderland Epic skins don’t require loot boxes

Speaking of rewards, players can obtain all three of the new epic-rarity event skins without opening a single loot box or spending any gold. One the epic skins will be featured each week and can be obtained by winning nine games in any game mode before the next week begins.

The first epic skin to be featured during week one of Winter Wonderland 2019 is “Ugly Sweater: 76.” Week two’s skin is “Holly Moira,” and week three’s is “Snow Angel Mercy.”

The last and most unexpected addition to arrive this holiday season is a new feature called “While You Wait.”

While You Wait is replacing Skirmish as Overwatch’s new intermediary mode while queueing for matches. Players can now choose between four different game modes while passing the time before the next match to start.

Skirmish returns as one of the options alongside Deathmatch, a more serious version of Skirmish where players compete against one another for the top place on the scoreboard. Practice Range is a fairly straightforward one that sees the player enter a training ground full of bots to kill. 

Finally, players can choose a Custom Game from the game browser.

Overwatch is certainly getting into the spirit of giving this holiday season with all this new content.