As the winter holidays draw closer, Blizzard Entertainment has teased Overwatch 2’s annual winter event, and this time the winter wonderland comes with a twist.
Since the release of Overwatch’s sequel, competitive seasons have been accompanied by not only rank resets but also battle passes, the new way to get free or lower-cost cosmetics in the game’s updated monetization model. For the game’s eighth competitive season, the normal battle pass will now be accompanied by a special winter event pass. Though we have few official details about this new mini battle pass, the “Winter Fair” Battle Pass seems to celebrate the season with a mixture of old and new skins, plus a few extra festive rewards.
The additional battle pass will not replace the usual battle pass for season 8, which will still contain the normal amount of skins and other cosmetic rewards as every previous Overwatch 2 season. Instead, the Winter Fair battle pass is an additional surprise that unlocks cosmetics for Baptiste, Widowmaker, Reinhardt, and Cassidy.
The Baptiste and Reinhardt skins are exclusive to the new winter event for 2023, while the Widowmaker and Cassidy skins are both limited skins making a rare re-appearance. The Widowmaker skin, “Kerrigan,” is known as one of the rarest in the game, given out previously for the 20th anniversary of Starcraft in 2018. Like the normal season’s battle pass, the mini Winter Fair battle pass will include both paid and free tiers, meaning everyone can earn some of the rewards without paying for the additional battle pass.
This new secondary battle pass might look familiar to some longtime Overwatch players who remember the older mechanics to get special event skins. These skins used to be easy to farm, since players would simply have to win a certain number of games to get the cosmetics for free, usually in multiples of three games for each tier of cosmetic. The bottom of the preview screen for the new Winter Fair battle pass includes very similar wording to these old, long-lost Overwatch events, reading “Complete games. Wins grant double progress.”
Regardless of if you choose to go for just the free rewards or the Premium tier rewards, the Winter Fair battle pass should offer a fun little bonus for the holidays, and all of the rewards will be easy to achieve. If you don’t always buy the main season’s battle pass, you may want to consider buying the Winter Fair secondary pass, since it will likely be priced lower than the full battle pass.
