Everything In Overwatch’s Archives 2021 Event

It’s Archives season in Overwatch once again. From now until April 27, players can participate in three co-op story missions in the arcade, unlock new skins inspired by history, and grab any Overwatch unlockables from past years’ Archives. While there isn’t a brand-new mission for players this year, Blizzard has introduced a few tweaks to the three existing Archives experiences to change things up. The method of unlocking weekly challenge skins has also changed, possibly inspiring more people to give the co-op another look.

Even veterans of the Overwatch Archives missions will have challenges awaiting them this year. In Uprising, players may experience Bulletproof Barriers, a modifier that makes Omnic energy shields impenetrable to incoming fire. In Retribution, there’s Sympathy Gains, which makes incoming damage to one enemy heal surrounding enemies. Finally, in Storm Rising, Thunderstorm enemies can damage groups of players with ease. Each week of the Archives event will feature one of the new missions and offer double credit for players.

A new weekly challenge skin can be unlocked after players gain stars in Archives missions, and each week will have a featured mission that allows players to unlock challenge rewards faster. Corredor Lucio, Subaquatic Zenyatta, and Camouflage Mercy will be available through this method, in that order, as the weeks progress, each skin requiring 30 stars to unlock.

Overwatch Archives 2021’s New Legendary Skins

In addition to new emotes, tags, voice lines, and player icons, there are five new Legendary skins to grab from loot boxes during Archives 2021. Each skin is themed around real-world history; Cavalry Tracer and Soldier: 1776 don Revolutionary War garb from their home countries, while Mousquetaire Widowmaker takes up arms as a musketeer. Bushi Genji lends a samurai ensemble to the swordfighter’s wardrobe, and Polyanitsa Zarya gives the laser-toting Russian an armored look. Each skin is also purchasable for 3,000 coins, and players can grab legendary looks from previous years’ events for 1,000 coins.

With Blizzard still hard at work on Overwatch‘s upcoming sequel, this year’s Archives event is a bit lighter than previous incarnations. Still, there are several great new skins for fans of the game – especially those who want to give a more literal meaning to Tracer’s “the cavalry’s here” catchphrase. The additions to co-op missions may hint at some of the ideas Blizzard will implement in Overwatch 2‘s co-op-focused campaign, so anyone excited for the sequel may want to log in at some point this month. But in just three short weeks, all of these era-appropriate Overwatchskins will be history.

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