For the past few years, hero-shooter Overwatch has kicked off its seasonal Archives event in April. However, Blizzard has decided to launch the Archives 2020 event a month earlier than expected. As announced by Blizzard, Overwatch Archives 2020 is live from now until April 2, giving fans of the game three weeks worth of content to unlock.
Unlike past years, the Overwatch Archives event will not introduce any new story mission. This is likely due to Overwatch 2 having a dedicated story mode, but it's possible Blizzard decided to skip on lore this time around for other reasons. In any case, Overwatch Archives 2020 is still looking for new ways to keep fans engaged, this time by releasing special modifiers alongside the previously-existing missions to shake things up a bit.
For Week 1, the Overwatch Uprising mission will have variants that make it so enemies drop lava when they're killed and players have 50% less health and increased damage. Week 2 will see changes to the Retribution mission so that only critical hits do damage to enemies and enemies can only be damaged if a player is close to them. Week 3 will change the Storm Rising mission so that no support heroes are allowed and healing is reduced, but players will be able to heal themselves by doing damage to enemies. Storm Rising will also have a modifier that makes some enemies "enraged" and killing them spreads that to nearby foes. Along with these modified versions of past Overwatch Archives events, the regular versions will also be available.
Overwatch fans can also look forward to special weekly challenges while the Overwatch Archives 2020 event is live. By winning games, players can unlock Holi Symmetra in Week 1, Rustclad Torbjorn in Week 2, and Bear Mei in Week 3. Five additional Legendary skins and three Epic skins will also be available in loot boxes, on top of other new cosmetics like player icons, emotes, and sprays. Of course, all the Archives event cosmetics from past years will also be up for grabs as usual.
The Overwatch Archives 2020 event comes hot off the heels of the Mardi Gras event, which let fans unlock holiday-themed cosmetics. Looking ahead, the next seasonal event should be the Anniversary event, which typically starts at the end of May.
When Overwatch 2 is released, it will be interesting to see if Blizzard decides to mix things up with the game's annual events. We'll find out in the coming months.
Overwatch is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.