What’s New in Overwatch’s Year of the Dog Event? Everything You Need to Know

Capture the Flag and Competitive Capture the Flag

What’s New in Overwatch’s Year of the Dog Event? Everything You Need to Know

Overwatch’s Year of the Dog event sees the return of the Capture the Flag mode that appeared during last year’s Chinese New Year event. Year of the Dog also brings an all-new competitive variant which, as you might expect, aims to offer a more competitive experience with placement matches, skill ratings tiers, competitive points, and all the rest.

Blizzard has made some gameplay changes to the event-only game mode as part of its inclusion in Year of the Dog. We’re gonna break it down for you real quick:

• Flag pickup is now instantaneous, but once an enemy drops you, they won’t be able to pick up the flag for five seconds.
• Flags return after 4 seconds.
• Flag return is not interrupted by taking damage.
• Mobility and invulnerability skills drop the flag.
• Music plays while carrying the flag (how nice).
• Sudden death will break ties at the end of a match.
• When time runs out, the round starts over, the flags are moved closer to the center of the map, and the first team to capture wins.

There’s also a whole new map designed specifically for the mode, but we’ll get to that a bit later.