Overwatch's Blizzard World Map Returns After Winter Wonderland 2018 Update Broke It

[Update 2] After being removed, Blizzard World has now been added back into the map rotation. [Update 1] Winter Wonderland is ongoing, but Overwatch players will have to do without one of its maps for the time being. As noted below, the update brought with it a holiday-themed version of the Blizzard World map, but issues have effectively rendered it unplayable--prompting Blizzard to remove it temporarily.

"We've identified an issue with Blizzard World preventing players from leaving spawn areas at the start of the match and completing the match," Blizzard wrote on its forums. "Due to the impact of this issue, we have temporarily disabled Blizzard World in all regions on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One while we troubleshoot. We don't have an ETA to share right now for when Blizzard World will again be playable, but this is currently our top priority." Alongside this, Arcade modes that include the map have been disabled. Blizzard will provide further updates on Twitter and in the forum thread when there is info to share. The original story follows.

Overwatch's annual Winter Wonderland update has gone live on all platforms, letting you throw down in some holiday-themed events and introducing a load of new winter skins. The festivities will last until January 2.

This year the game brings back the Yeti Hunter and Mei's Snowball Offensive modes from previous years, but it doesn't include any new Brawls. The Blizzard World, Black Forest, King's Row, and Hanamura maps were all given wintery makeovers for the event too. Naturally the event also includes loads of new skins alongside the return of winter skins from last year at reduced prices.

A teaser video that announced the event showed the Blizzard World map redone as a holiday village. The Overwatch Twitter has also shown off several of the new skins: Snowboarder Zarya, Snow Fox Lucio, Sugar Plum Fairy Mercy, Biathlon Widowmaker, Gift Wrap Bastion, Figure Skater Symmetra, and Krampus Junkrat. Check out a gallery of the skins below.

Gallery

These winter events tend to be themed around Mei, the cold-based climatologist. This is also the first Winter Wonderland event since the game has introduced Brigitte, Wrecking Ball, and Ashe, so they're bound to have an impact on the meta for any returning holiday game modes.

Blizzard recently introduced a massive overhaul for Overwatch. It made players redownload the game in full, but it was aimed at streamlining the game and getting rid of some legacy issues to make it all smoother under-the-hood. While skins are the major draw of these regular annual events, Blizzard may need to tinker with those soon too. Both the US and Australia are considering investigations into loot boxes.