Since the release of the original Overwatch in 2016, a huge number of character skins have been added to the game. Many of them were given away for free, some could be purchased in loot boxes or in the in-game store, and some could only be obtained by participating in the promotion.
Stable statistics on the rarity for certain character skins was formed a long time ago and the release of Overwatch 2 aggravated this situation. Skins from this top can no longer be purchased or obtained (except for access to an account with them), so if you are a new player and want to collect them, then unfortunately you will not succeed. It may happen that the developers will return some of these skins to the in-game store for a short time, but this is very unlikely.
Jedoch, if you see players with these skins, then you can be sure that you are very lucky, because you can see not only a real Overwatch veteran, but also the owner of an extremely rare skin.
10. Kerrigan Widowmaker
Im 2018, Blizzard celebrated the 20th anniversary of its other legendary game series, Starcraft. In this regard, the Kerrigan Widowmaker skin was added to the game.
This skin was given away for free to anyone who logged into the Overwatch game within a certain period of time. Despite the fact that the promotion lasted for almost a month and this is the only skin in our top that could be obtained for free, it is still the rarest of its kind.
Maybe this is due to the fact that the Widowmaker is a hero with a very high entry threshold in order to be useful to his team, or maybe ordinary Overwatch players did not really appreciate the hero’s festive collaboration with Sarah Kerrigan, which she looked like initially, but in any case, the fact remains that this skin in the game can be seen very infrequently.
9. Genji and Tracer All-Stars
These two skins have opened up a whole slew of All Stars skins that will be released in the future for the game, so these two are the trailblazers. All those who watched the Overwatch League matches in 2018 received a special in-game currency – Overwatch League Tokens. Each skin costed 200 tokens and it was really difficult to earn them, so gamers gave their preference to Genji’s appearance – it can be found in the game more often.
Na sicher, the developers could not help but make money on these skins, and especially for those who wanted to save their time, the required number of tokens could simply be purchased for real money.
It would seem obvious that such skins are a great way to highlight your favorite hero, but either the Pacific style of the skins, or their appearance gave players the impression that they are not worth the effort or money expended, so both of these skins are extremely rare in the game.
8. Brigitte Medic Skin
Ironisch, this skin is the most recent in our list – it was added to the game just a few months before Overwatch 2 went into early access. Unfortunately for players (and developers) this didn’t mean that many players rushed to get this skin.
This is another collaboration between the Overwatch and the Starcraft series, it is worth noting that it is quite successful and authentic. Aber, Unglücklicherweise, the developers made a very strange decision when they chose a way for players to get it.
At that time, many players were used to the fact that skins could simply be either bought in the store or received for free by playing a certain number of matches in the game. Jedoch, an unprecedented promotion was invented for this skin and it consisted of the following: to unlock this exclusive skin, players had to have a Twitch account linked to their Blizzard account. Danach, it was necessary to give three subs to the streamer while he was playing the beta version of Overwatch 2.
This is not the first promotion that required players to have a Twitch account, but the first that required donating overwatch to streamers. Im Algemeinen, this appearance caused a lot of indignation among the players, and there are at least three reasons for this:
- The skin is made specifically for Brigitte, which is a pain in the ass for many veterans of the game. When this character first appeared in the game, she was incredibly powerful and due to the fact that she was very easy to play, many players felt real hatred for the character and those who play for her. Now this character has been killed by nerfs and is often either useless for the team or needed in very rare situations, so this skin turned out to be unnecessary for majority of players.
- Players felt that the skin didn’t look good enough to bother with. If only because in the entire history of Overwatch there were skins that looked many times better and were easier to get.
- It seemed very stupid and dishonest to many players to donate to overwatch streamers in order to get a skin in the game. It literally looks like popular streamers who already make a lot of money through advertising contracts and donations from subscribers are now collecting money from ordinary players with the permission of the developers. The second point only reinforces this argument – the players considered that their money is more expensive and more important than some set of pixels on the screen.
Deshalb, even if someone has this skin in the collection, it is likely that you will not know about it, since this is also not the most interesting and unusual skin for this character.
7. All Access Pass Skins
In seventh place we have a whole bunch of skins that symbolize a failed attempt at cooperation between Blizzard and Twitch. Im 2018, Overwatch developers were looking for a platform to host their esports matches and entered into an agreement with Twitch, according to which they offered players a number of benefits.
Avid fans of Overwatch as an esports discipline could purchase a kind of battle pass for their Twitch profile and get three special skins for Moira, McCree and Soldier 76 in gray colors. But in addition, each player could independently donate Twitch Beats in order to receive more unique rewards. And that’s where we’re talking about the 12 additional skins whose colors represent the 12 teams participating in the Overwatch League in 2018.
Since Twitch’s Bits required quite a lot of investment in real money, and the skins themselves look like ordinary recolors of standard skins, very few players decided to get them into their collection. Ebenfalls, they don’t look very pretty – you’re more likely to pick up any Legendary skin and play with it rather than the ones you see in the screenshots.
Deshalb, they are also considered very rare and it is a great luck to meet them in the game.
While we’re on the topic of esports skins anyway, it’s worth mentioning a separate line of Overwatch Contenders skins in black and green as well. They were given out for watching Overwatch League matches, one skin for every few hours of watching matches.
There were also various playoffs, play-ins, off-season and other periods in which recolors of the original skins were also issued. And in the in-game store of the original game, you could buy skins for heroes in the colors of your favorite Overwatch League team, in principle, they can also be considered rare, because few people bought them.
6. Reinhardt Raynor Skin
An example of a great skin idea that suffered from a mediocre implementation and even more mediocre distribution.
Im 2021, Blizzard was celebrating its 30th anniversary, which is why they couldn’t come up with anything better than selling a gift set of in-game gifts for players.
Among various cosmetic items, one could find a Reinhardt skin in the form of Jim Raynor from StarCraft (Ja, another collaboration with the StarCraft series of games). And this is really a very great idea, but in reality it turned out that the skin really turned out to be just a “skin”.
The fact is that the epic and legendary character skins in the game add or change the ordinary phrases of the characters, replace the sounds of the effects, or even change some animations. It would seem that in honor of such a significant event, it was possible to invite the actor who voiced Jim Raynor to re-voice Reinhardt’s lines or maybe try somehow with effects or animations, aber nein.
Here is the most common appearance, welcher, according to many players, also looks strange, just look at Jim Raynor’s face from the game and his face in Overwatch.
The final highlight is the fact that the in-game gift pack had 3 editions, aber die “Raynhardt” legendary skin was only available in the Heroic ($39.99) or Epic ($59.99) Packungen. Wow, what a price!
Blizzard was not saved even by the fact that this set was available for purchase for the entire anniversary year – there were not too many people who wanted to buy such a luxurious set of gifts.
5. Winston BlizzCon 2017 Haut
Winston has always lacked worthy and interesting skins, but since he was one of the characters who most often flashed in game posters and cinematic/promotional videos, a year after the release of the game, it was he who got this rare skin.
This was the heyday of Blizzard’s era when they were very proud of their BlizzCon releases, so this skin could be obtained either by those attending the show or by purchasing an e-ticket that was on sale for a limited time.
Nochmal, despite the fact that the skin has a rather pleasant combination of colors, for many it is also just a recolor of the original appearance.
In subsequent years, this problem will be eliminated and ticket holders will receive much more interesting and attractive skins. But who said that everything should be received at once, Rechts?
Deshalb, few have received this skin, and its owners are not always in a hurry to play with it in public or competitive matches.
4. Bastion BlizzCon 2016 Haut
It might have been worth merging this skin into one rating point with the previous one, but I think that this skin deserves a special mention, Weil. even rarer than the future Winston BlizzCon 2017 Haut.
The original game was released in May 2016, and that year’s Blizzcon took place in November of that year. It was the first gift to Blizzcon ticket holders for Overwatch and Blizzard themselves still did not really know what to offer their players and in what direction to move.
Zusätzlich, this is another case where the skin went to a very specific character, which was chosen by the players only in rare cases, so this skin can be seen even less often than all of the above.
Na sicher, you can still find activation codes with this skin, but their price is extremely high. Und ja, remember that these codes are no longer working, so it’s also impossible to get this skin.
3. Widowmaker Noire Skin
Widowmaker is one of the franchise’s most iconic heroes, so it’s no surprise that the cold-blooded French assassin has been given numerous skins over the years, but her most exclusive look is the famous Noire skin.
This daring black and red costume, adorned with details as crisp as the heroine herself, was only available with the original Overwatch pre-order, meaning only those who have been playing since day one will receive this incredibly rare item.
And don’t have false hopes about this skin. Even if you go to ebay or other sites where you can buy activation codes by hand, which can cost 200-300 USD, you can be sure that these codes are useless.
With the release of Overwatch 2, all old activation codes can no longer be activated and are perceived as broken. This fact was verified by a number of fans of the original game who attempted to redeem unused pre-order codes for the game. Seeing this skin is really extremely difficult due to the fact that this is not the most original and interesting look these days.
Over the years, Widowmaker has gotten such luxurious skins that many who pre-ordered the game prefer to play with them.
2. Pink Mercy Skin
In second place we have a very beautiful skin for one of the most popular characters in the game – Pink Mercy. This beautiful and very delicate look could only be acquired in 2018 for a very short period of time. At the time, Blizzard was involved in a charity event and was raising funds for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, an independent for-profit organization, in an attempt to raise public awareness of the problem of female breast cancer.
The skin could only be purchased with real money and cost $14.99, with all proceeds going to the above organization. At the end of the event, the organizers raised over $12.7 Million, which speaks of the incredible success and big sales of this skin. Despite the overwhelming success of the campaign and the popularity of the skin, since then the developers have repeatedly stated that they will not return this skin to the market, and this has been going on for more than 5 Jahre.
Blizzard has really never been in the habit of returning unique or promotional skins to the market for a very long time, giving new players a chance, but with the release of Overwatch 2 this situation has changed and who knows, maybe in the future it will happen that this and other skins will again become available for purchases.
1. Zarya Alien Skin
And here we are, our great finalist is a skin with a very unusual story, which rightfully made it unique and the rarest in the game.
Blizzard has created a series of unique skins in honor of the best players in the Overwatch League. Each skin was sold for 200 League Tokens, which we talked about more right above. Like others, this particular skin was also dedicated to player Jay “Sinatraa” Won who achieved great success with the San Francisco Shock. He proved himself to be an outstanding player for the Zarya, so he bothered to get his personal skin, which went on sale in 2019.
This is really the most unusual look for Zarya because it almost completely changes her appearance, which also seems to be inspired by the Men in Black film series – a strict black tuxedo suit and an interesting alien look.
But Zarya was not the main tank back in the original Overwatch, außerdem, her role was situational, and therefore it was quite rare to meet good players on Zarya. Ebenfalls, many players simply did not appreciate the fact that the style of the skin has nothing to do with Overwatch and is very much out of the atmosphere of the game.
Im 2021, Jay “Sinatraa” Won became the victim of a sexual harassment scandal. His girlfriend stated that the cybersportsman threatened her, beat her, and also forcibly persuaded her to have sexual intimacy. As soon as this whole situation hit the media, Blizzard immediately issued a statement that they did not want to be involved in this situation, and therefore they removed this skin from sale and now it will never be available. Also they removed from the skin some elements that referred to Jay “Sinatraa” Won and for the first time Blizzard offered players a 100% refund for this skin to everyone.
Many have indeed decided to refund this skin and get their tokens or money back, making it go from extremely rare to truly unique. Zusätzlich, after the story with this skin, Blizzard abandoned the idea of releasing skins in honor of the MVP players in the Overwatch League in order not to find themselves in such a situation again.
So if you meet a player with this skin, then you can safely say that you have a living legend in front of you, who chose a memorable skin with an unusual and complex history.
Fazit
