The Overwatch Halloween Terror Event Is Easier Than Ever

It’s that time of the year again as Overwatch’s Halloween Terror event kicks into gear with the usual assortment of new skins, emotes and stuff you probably won’t get in your loot boxes no matter how many you buy. Junkenstein’s Revenge also makes a return, arguably the best co-op PvE that Blizzard has developed for Mercy and Co. so far. From an outsider looking in, it’s all the same waves and the same enemies, but there’s two key additions to the 2018 version that really deftly changes things up just enough to make it worth a revisit.

For those of you who might not have played Junkenstein’s Revenge before, imagine a 4 player co-op mode where the aim is to defend a large wooden door from endless waves of robots and a bunch of Overwatch heroes and villains dressed up as Halloween critters, using only a select few characters from the usually diverse roster. It started three years ago as a simple enough challenge, evolving into both a standard and an endless mode over the years.

For the 2018 edition, Blizzard have added both Brigitte and Tracer to the available roster of characters for the limited time mode, and it’s the former with her shield bash and health boosts that can deftly turn the tide in the heat of battle. Suddenly all those Reapers and Roadhogs constantly spawning one after the other have something to fear.

And then there’s Torbjorn. The veteran turret builder’s complete re-work, which went live at the same time as the event, threw out his previous ‘Molten Core’ ultimate move for a lava spewing defensive tactic that’s not unlike Wrecking Ball’s crowd control ult, forcing players to stay out of harms way instead of in the thick of it. Couple that with the ability to throw your turret almost anywhere within reach and you’ve got one of the best defensive lines the meta has ever seen that makes defending the door and cleaning up random robots far simpler than previously.

You would think considering how big these two key changes are that Blizzard might have altered the combat or enemy AI within Junkenstein’s Revenge to suit, but it doesn’t seem like that was under consideration. Where as previous attempts at Expert or Legendary difficulty in endless mode seemed like nightmare, now they are a beautiful mess of lava spewing and shield bashing coupled with whatever else the other two players in your team might be doing (I’d suggest Hanso/McCree and Anna/Zenyatta).

Within two attempts of the event going live, I managed to clean up two rare achievements on Xbox, completing Junkenstein’s Revenge on Expert and on Legendary, among a bunch of other achievements I honestly didn’t think I’d ever accomplish in the previous iteration. That’s not to say others haven’t completed the limited time mode in the past or found it easier as a certain character, but it’s pretty clear to me that Brigitte and Torbjorn are the key to unlocking some really challenging and satisfying to complete achievements.

Overwatch Halloween Terror runs until Oct 31 on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Get in on that if you’re an achievement hunter.