Overwatch Winter Wonderland Skin Analysis: Did Mei Fans Get Coal In Their Stockings?

Overwatch's Winter Wonderland event brought gifts for all, which was met with a chorus of joyous applause – from almost everyone. But several people were pretty upset that their favorite character got the short end of the candy cane.

The most high-profile complaint is that of Mei's legendary skin Mei-rry, which shows her in a Mrs. Claus-like outfit that makes her Cryo-Freeze ability turn herself into a snowman instead of a generic ice block.

While this was good enough for some, many people took to Reddit, the Overwatch forums and social media to complain to Blizzard about it. Their complaints were either that it's generally a bad skin that amounts to litle more than a recolor, or that it's a decent skin that has no business being Legendary (and, therefore, cost 3000 in-game credits).

The magnitude of these complaints were such that Game Director Jeff Kaplan responded in the forums with an apology for misjudging Mei's skin, but it doesn't appear any changes are imminent. Kaplan did say that they have "something pretty awesome" planned for her "early next year" without giving more details, so, if you're one of Mei's devoted fans who are upset with the skin, you might not be left in the cold for too long.

While people are upset, it is worth noting that a Reddit thread suggested the very same ice snowman change back in November to the tune of 7609 upvotes. I guess people always want what they don't have and don't want it once they get it.

Here's a look at who else got coal in their stockings instead of great skins:

Bottom Tier

Zarya

This is probably the most shameful of all. Zarya's "Frosted" skin is little more than a recolor, and she already has a white recolor. Putting her Frosted skin and "Dawn" skin side-by-side, as I did above, is like playing one of those "circle the differences" games in children's books.

Now, Zarya did get a sort of consolation prize with her Legendary Emote, which is quite great, and marks only the second Legendary Emote in the entire game, but people have to wonder why they included the special event skin at all, if that's all they're going to give.

Lucio

And on the subject of recolors, Lucio is also just a recolor with a Santa hat. It's basically Mei-rry, but without a cool animation to go along with it. Even if you think of him as just an Elf, as shown on the start page of Overwatch, Tracer's Elf is far and away a better version.

But people may not be as upset about this one, or Zarya's for that matter, because it's Epic rarity – not legendary, which means it's much more affordable for people who are purchasing skins with in-game credits.

Middle of the Pack

While they weren't all trashy recolors, they weren't all great either. Roadhog's Rudolph was basically a recolor, but with reindeer horns and a glowing belly button.

 

Pharah and Reaper both look pretty cool, but nothing too special (Reaper is also looking a lot like Mortal Kombat's Sub-Zero). Sombra's Peppermint, Tracer's Jingle will also pretty firmly fall in this category, because, while they may be close to recolors, they're also pretty dang festive, beyond just adding a Santa hat (looking at you, Lucio).

Top of the Christmas List

McCree

Scrooge McCree is definitely one of the best skins in Overwatch. It's a head-to-toe design that's both festive and inventive. This value is especially noticeable, since it's only Epic rarity.

Paired with his new Hat Trick emote, and this is a must-have of Winter Wonderland.

Torbjorn

Torbjorn's Santaclad of course had to be here, in the upper echelon of skins, changing almost everything about his appearance and even adding little reindeer horns to his turret.

The only shame is that Torbjorn still doesn't have what it takes to be in competitive meta, so you'll probably only see Santa roaming around the Arcade or in Quick Play. Oh well.

Winston

Yeti Winston is seriously a really good idea, and it updated his weapon really well, also. To think that I was wondering if he would have the Santa skin? That would have been an awful waste, given what we now know.

It's safe to say that no one is arguing that this one isn't worth its legendary status.

Zenyatta

Man do people who hoped his orbs would become snowballs or ornaments feel silly. Zenyatta got the ultimate holiday treatment with his Nutcracker skin, turning all of his orbs into walnuts.

Of all the top-tier skins out there, this one has to take the cake. In fact, it's probably skins of this caliber that make skins like Mei's look worse in comparison.