Overwatch celebrates Chinese New Year with new Mei, D. Va skins
UPDATE: The Year of the Rooster is now live!
UPDATE 24/01/2017 7.39pm: Overwatch's Year of the Rooster holiday update is now live on all platforms.
From now through 13th February over 100 commemorative cosmetic items will be added to the game, including new skins like Palanquin D.Va and Wukong Winston.
The Year of the Rooster event comes with its own Chinese New Year's-themed brawl, Capture the Rooster. Set in Lijiang Tower, it's basically Capture the Flag, but with a rooster.
Here's an official English language trailer showing off some of the new content:
UPDATE 24th JAN: Another, much better quality trailer, has leaked. It's longer and shows more of the upcoming Year of the Rooster content. It also appears to name the Capture the Flag mode as Capture the Rooster.
Spanish retailer Media Markt leaked the trailer in a tweet but has since removed it. The trailer has, however, been uploaded elsewhere by members of the Overwatch subreddit.
UPDATE 23RD JAN: A trailer has leaked on huge Chinese social network Weibo. Posted on Reddit, the Overwatch Year of the Rooster trailer advertises new character skins, highlight intros and what looks to be a Capture the Flag mode.
The Year of the Rooster content will go live at some point tomorrow (updates usually occur early evening time).
UPDATE 20TH JAN: The legendary Overwatch character skins arriving during the Chinese New Year celebration may have been leaked.
A picture was found by a Chinese player, relayed on the Overwatch subreddit, showing Winston, Reinhardt, Zenyatta and Roadhog dressed up as characters from famous Chinese story Journey to the West.
Winston is the monkey king Sun Wukong, and Zenyatta is his Buddhism master Tang Sanzang, apparently. Roadhog is the pig monster Zhu Bajie, and Reinhardt is the river monster Sha Heshang.
The costumes are elaborate enough to be considered legendary. Does that mean the Mei and D. Va costumes below are considered epic, a tier lower?
Furthermore, the characters in the leaked piece of art are hardly starved of great costumes, except perhaps Winston. It would have been nice to see Zarya in the mix for once.
ORIGINAL STORY 19TH JAN: Jaunty team game Overwatch, Eurogamer's Game of the Year 2016, celebrates Chinese New Year with themed goodies, including Mei and D. Va costumes shown on the game's official Twitter accounts. The decoration on D. Va's mech is particularly fetching.
The new skins suggest themed Chinese New Year loot boxes and all the trimmings they come with: skins, sprays, emotes, intros and so on. We may also get a new Arcade game mode or something similar. It's unlikely we'll see a new map so soon after Oasis.
The Chinese New Year content arrives in Overwatch 24th January. The actual Chinese New Year - the Year of the Rooster - begins 28th January.