'Overwatch' Anniversary Event Start Time: When Can You Start Celebrating With Loot Boxes?

Update: It's started!

Overwatch’s sixth event celebrating the game's one-year anniversary starts tomorrow. If you’re a diehard Bastion fanboy like me, you’ve been counting down the days until the celebration begins. Once that patch drops, expect an avalanche of information to hit your screens, since we really don’t know much about the event so far.

The Overwatch Anniversary Event will start on May 23 somewhere around 2 to 3 p.m. EDT. This is just a guess – Blizzard sometimes has to delay patches for unknown reasons.

Other online outlets believe the event will be coming out at 11 a.m. EDT because of a leak on the German PlayStation store. I’m not sure North Americans will be able to buy loot boxes then, as most Blizzard and Overwatch events start later in the day in the EU. Still, I’d be pretty excited if I got to get my hands on the new emotes, skins and maps earlier in my day, though I’m not hopeful.

If you haven’t been keeping up with all the crazy theories, rumors and leaks surrounding the Overwatch Anniversary Event, here’s everything the internet knows about Blizzard’s extravaganza.

New Skins- On the Overwatch Facebook account, players got their first look at some of the awesome new skins coming in the Anniversary event. Bastion, Soldier:76, Pharrah and Zaryah are all getting crazy new cosmetics inspired by the lore and fan communities. I’m not sure how they came up with the idea of mashing the beeping omnic with a racecar, but I thank Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch team for it.

New Maps- Three new Arena maps are coming with the event: Eichenwalde, Temple Of Anubis and Dorado. They will be miniature versions of their larger counterparts, made for duels and 3v3 fights. Ecopoint: Antarctica has gotten pretty stale, so I’m glad I’ll get another location to lose all my 1v1 games.

Emotes Galore- Another social media reveal gave us our first look at some of the dancing emotes coming with the event. There’s nothing I love more than killing someone in a stairwell and being able to dance on their grave – I’m talking about in-game, I swear – and these dances are great for sharing that BM around.

Voice Lines- Want some Lucio-Oh references in your game? This event has everything a fan could ever dream of, from lore-centric dialogue to fan-service riddled memes.

Free Play Weekend- From May 26 to 29, Overwatch will be free-to-play across all consoles and platforms. Just download the client and jump straight into the game, which means if you’ve been holding off playing because you can’t afford it or just don’t want to spend 50 dollars, here’s your chance.

Are you excited for the Overwatch anniversary event and get some practice in for Overwatch Contenders ? Tell us in the comments.