Overwatch Archives 2019 | Release date, skins, new modes, and more

The Overwatch Archives 2019 event is almost upon us. This year, it is called Overwatch Storm Rising. Being one of the big sole lore drops of the year, the Archives events always seem to be the most important in the grand scheme of things. After all, it’s not often we hear more about the story in a meaningful way. And even though we don’t know much the Overwatch Archives 2019 release date, skins, mode, or much else, we can look at some leaks as well as some past years to make some educated guesses.

Overwatch Archives 2019 release date

The Overwatch Twitter account revealed the Overwatch Archives 2019 release date. It will start on April 16 and end on May 6. It is called “Storm Rising.”

This lines up pretty closely to prior years. The first event started on April 11, 2017 and ran until May 2, 2017. The second event in 2018 ran from April 10 to May 1. Both started on the Tuesday in the second week of April and ended on the first Tuesday of May.

Overwatch Archives 2019 mode

The first event was called Uprising while the second was named Retribution and both were four-player cooperative modes. While we don’t know the moniker of this event, it will probably bring a new co-op mode like both Uprising and Retribution, according to a recent leak. Keep in mind that this could be a fake leak spreading around as Blizzard has not stated anything about this year’s event.

This leak has icons for Sombra, Baptiste (the newest hero), Doomfist, and Widowmaker. However, people are speculating that it could be Moira instead of Widowmaker but given that Baptiste is a healer, it lends more credence to it being Widowmaker. It is a blurry picture so neither is out of the running.

The icons for the achievement are all for each hero’s Talon skin as Sombra has her full head of hair and Doomfist has his face tattoos. It could be showing Widowmaker’s Talon skin already in the game or, if it is indeed Moira, some unknown Talon skin that could be part of the event. It could even be the horned one from her origins video that is in the above picture. Baptiste’s icon could also be for some skin in the event we do not currently know about.

Given each’s history with Talon, it’s incredibly likely that this will be some Talon squad mission. The other two focused on Overwatch and then Blackwatch so making this next about Talon is the next logical step. Blizzard has still not confirmed any specifics on the event though.

The Uprising event had Torbjörn, Tracer, Reinhardt, and Mercy took place near the of Overwatch’s days as an organization. It was Tracer’s first mission and saw the team deliver a bomb to the omnic’s base. Uprising was fairly light on story but gave players a decent glimpse into the past.

Retribution followed the next year. It put players in the shoes of McCree, Moira, Genji, and Reaper before he had completely transformed. These four made up the secret Blackwatch wing of Overwatch. However, this mission was what made the shadier sides of Overwatch known to the world and where its downfall began.

Given the cutscenes, Retribution had a bigger focus on story and implies that this alleged Talon event will also be heavy on the narrative. We don’t know much about Talon so this could be a decent peek into what is going on for those inside the evil organization.

Overwatch Archives 2019 skins

There have been no leaks of Overwatch Archive 2019 skins. But we can look at characters that will probably get a skin. Even though Baptiste is quite new, it is possible that we will see him get a Talon skin. Not only would it fit the event, but it would be almost essential given his role in Talon and the topic of the (supposedly) leaked mission.

Moira could also use a more proper Talon skin. While she got a Blackwatch outfit in 2018, her horned Talon look would also match the event but also be great if she was indeed in the supposed Talon co-op mission. Brigitte could even get a younger skin from her time as Reinhardt’s squire given how this event goes into how each hero looked in the past.

The other skins will be harder to pin down especially since last year’s Archives events had a bunch of costumes that were not directly related to the event at hand.