Earlier this week, Blizzard teased the upcoming Year of the Rooster event for massively popular multiplayer shooter Overwatch, which will be in celebration of the Chinese New Year.
Videos that were uploaded to announce the event revealed the Jan. 24 release date and a pair of event-specific legendary skins for Mei and D.Va. A leaked advertisement for Year of the Rooster, however, might have revealed the rest of the legendary skins that the event will offer to players.
Legendary Skins For Year Of The Rooster Inspired By Journey To The West
The leaked advertisement, which was said to have been accidentally discovered by a player in China, was uploaded to a thread in the official Overwatch sub-Reddit. It shows Winston, Zenyatta, Roadhog, and Reinhardt in what is most likely legendary skins for the upcoming event.
The translation of the text on the advertisement indicates Journey to the West limited skins and a free trial period of Jan. 24 to Jan. 31.
Journey to the West is a classic Chinese novel written around 400 years ago. The four Overwatch characters in the advertisement are wearing skins based on four characters from the novel.
Winston is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, who inspired the character of Son Goku from Dragon Ball; Zenyatta is Tang Sanzang, Sun Wukong's Buddhism master; Roadhog is Zhu Bajie, the pig monster; and Reinhardt is Sha Heshang, the river monster.
Could The Journey To The West Skins Be A Hoax?
While the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the Chinese advertisement may seem sketchy at first glance, the skins based on Journey to the West are plausible given the fact that there was a hint of Winston getting a Monkey King skin.
A thread started earlier in the month on the Overwatch sub-Reddit draws attention toward a drawing that can be seen in the Ecopoint: Antarctica map. The drawing seemingly depicts Winston wearing the Monkey King's traditional clothes, along with his magical staff.
There is no official confirmation yet on the authenticity of the legendary skins, but given the hint, Journey to the West skins coming to Overwatch is likely happening. This will also continue the popularity of Sun Wukong in video games, as characters based on the Monkey King are currently playable in DOTA 2 and League of Legends.
Year Of The Rooster Speculation
The four leaked skins for Year of the Rooster join the previously teased ones for Mei and D.Va to up the total of known legendary skins for the event to six. This ties the so far biggest number of skins that Blizzard has ever released for an Overwatch event, and it is possible that these are all the legendary skins that will be offered in Year of the Rooster.
With the four Journey to the West skins revealed, it is also likely that the event-specific brawl for Year of the Rooster will be somewhat similar to Junkenstein's Revenge from last year's Halloween event. This is because the skins are made up of the master and three of his disciples, and so it is plausible that they will be working together in the Year of the Rooster brawl.
