Overwatch’s 2022 Anniversary event arrives in April with ‘remixed’ and returning skins

Overwatch’s annual Anniversary event, celebrating the sixth year of Blizzard Entertainment’s hero shooter in 2022, goes live on April 5 and will run through April 26. This year’s event will bring back past Overwatch brawls and challenge missions from previous seasonal events, and offers players new, remixed versions of fan-favorite Legendary skins. That includes variant outfits like Mage Mercy, a white version of her popular witch outfit, and Demon Genji, a white version of his Oni skin.

April’s Anniversary event will also give fans another chance to earn previously available but time-limited skins, including Nano D.Va, Bastet Ana, and Combat Medic Baptiste, through combat challenges (read: playing the game a lot). It doesn’t appear that next month’s event, which Blizzard is calling Overwatch Anniversary Remix: Volume 1, will include any totally new skins. Blizzard says that two more Anniversary events are planned for Overwatch in 2022.

Here’s a look at the six remixed Legendary skins coming in the Overwatch Anniversary Remix: Volume 1 event: Demon Genji, Evermore Reaper, Mage Mercy, Steelhardt Reinhardt, White Cat D.Va, and Zealot Zenyatta.

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• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
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• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
• Image: Blizzard Entertainment
• Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard also outlined the first week of rotating Arcade brawls and challenge missions coming in April. Week one, which runs April 5-11, will feature the following modes:

• April 5 – Summer Games
• April 6 – Halloween Terror
• April 7 – Halloween Terror Challenge Missions
• April 8 – Winter Wonderland
• April 9 – Lunar New Year
• April 10 – Overwatch Archives
• April 11 – Overwatch Archives Challenge Missions

Overwatch Anniversary Remix: Volume 1 will kick off with a weekly challenge, during which players can earn Nano D.Va cosmetics if they don’t already have them. Here’s the schedule so far.

Week 1: April 5-11

• Play 9 games – 2 Nano D.Va sprays
• Play 18 games – Nano D.Va player icon
• Play 27 games – Nano D.Va Epic skin

Overwatch’s remixed skins offering for its Anniversary event will likely cause some fuss among players who balked at the meager content offerings for the game’s previous event, Lunar New Year 2022. Blizzard’s lighter release plan is likely a result of the Overwatch team’s focus on Overwatch 2. Earlier this month, Blizzard revealed it was decoupling the PvP and PvE portions of Overwatch 2 in an effort to get the multiplayer component of the sequel out earlier than planned.

Blizzard also dropped some news about future events on the game’s forums, confirming that the three Anniversary Remix events will replace other Overwatch seasonal events that players typically expect.

Events “like Archives, standard Anniversary, and Summer Games will not make a return this year,” Blizzard said. “Instead, the Anniversary Remix events will be introducing a new set of variants in place of the normal event schedule, all of which will transfer to Overwatch 2 along with all previously earned skins, sprays, and player icons.

“This three-part anniversary event enables our team to allocate more time and attention to the upcoming PVP beta, while simultaneously providing the community with the chance to earn unique variants of your favorite Legendary skins.”

Overwatch 2’s multiplayer portion is currently playable in a private alpha test. A beta test, which will be open to more players, is slated to launch on PC on April 26.