The year of the Rooster is here, and what a better way to celebrate it than playing some Overwatch?

Teased on January 18th, less than a month after the Winter Wonderland event, Blizzard announced they will be celebrating Chinese New Year with their users by hosting the Year of the Rooster event, which holds many surprises.

From January 24th through February 13th you will be able to enjoy “Capture the Rooster” which is basically a game of capture the flag which will feature a celebratory makeover version of the Lijiang Tower map (China).

This is the first time this classic game type has been playable in Overwatch. Grouped in teams of 6, your task will be to steal the flag from the enemy base and bringing it back to yours, earning your team a point. The first team to score 3 points or the team with the highest score when the time runs out wins. This game mode will be featured in the Arcade game menu.

The Year of the Rooster will also feature a vast collection of celebratory cosmetics, such as skins, sprays, poses, voice lines and even special Year of the Rooster icons for your Overwatch profile.

These cosmetics will be un-lockable through Lunar New Year Loot Boxes which can be obtained through leveling up in-game, winning Arcade matches and of course, purchasing them for real money. Every Lunar New Year Loot Box contains 4 random drops, but within those 4 items one will be guaranteed a Year of the Rooster special item.

Starting off with the profile icons, most of them feature iconic aspects of the Chinese New Lunar Year celebration such as the red round lanterns or the dragon dance, with the exception of the Seollal icon which relates to the Korean celebration of the New Lunar Year.

Moving on to the sprays, every single hero has a spray of themselves each carrying a New Lunar Year Chinese dragon. Additionally, some heroes have a spray of themselves either performing a celebratory activity or doing something related to the celebration. There are also 6 other general sprays which can be also obtained through Lunar New Year Loot Boxes or earning achievements.

And last but not least, the strongest aspect of this whole event: the skins. Blizzard decided to give Roadhog, Winston, Reinhardt and Zenyatta special outfits that allude to the Chinese novel Journey to the West, each one representing characters from said novel respectively. Other heroes such as Mercy, Bastion, Ana, Junkrat, Tracer and some other members of the cast also got their share of skins to celebrate the occasion.

However, the hero that really shines the most in all this skin topic is Mei. Being Chinese, Blizzard designed not one, but two outfits to help her stay in fashion during this Chinese New Lunar Year event. One of her outfits features the Chinese traditional Red and Gold color scheme, while her other skin displays white, purple, gold and some green with a moon on her belt.

We are personally feeling really hyped about this Year of the Rooster event, and been loving everything about it so far. Remember we’ll get some Overwatch LIVE action with Sherrillx3 in our new Gamer Girl live streams segment, so be sure to check that out!

Happy New Lunar Year and good luck with those Loot Boxes!

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