Overwatch’s Anniversary event skins are way harder to get than usual

Want those sweet new skins from the Overwatch Anniversary event? Good luck — you’re really gonna need it. Although the game’s limited-time event items are always somewhat difficult to unlock (thanks to random chance), the newest set of highly coveted Overwatch skins are the rarest kind of loot box items available.

There are 108 items included in the Anniversary event — 11 of which are legendary skins. Buying everything would require 56,475 credits to purchase outright. That’s more costly than any previous event, according to Redditors who have kept tabs on the math. When looking at the breakdown of what new loot is part of the event, it’s easy to see why that is: All of the new skins are legendary, the rarest and most expensive tier in the game.

Buying a legendary skin will cost you 3,000 credits, much more than the next-best tier, epic. (Those cost 750 credits each.) While players can buy skins and other items with credits, they can’t buy the credits themselves — which means they either have to open a ton of loot boxes in the hopes that they’ll unlock those skins they want, get credits from duplicate items or find the currency in those boxes.

Grid View

• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment
• Overwatch Anniversary event screenshots Blizzard Entertainment

There’s no requirement to buy loot boxes with actual money, although anyone hoping to amass enough credits probably doesn’t want to wait around to win enough loot boxes from matches first. That becomes an even more expensive proposition when considering how many credits are needed for the legendary Anniversary event skins. With 11 available in total, players are looking at a cool 33,000 spend to get them all — that’s more than half the total cost of the event’s items, even though they make up less than a tenth of them.

The voice lines, sprays and especially the dance emotes are decent consolation prizes, but Overwatch players prioritize legendary skins over anything else. Unlike epic or other tiers of skins, these feature completely unique character models. As we’ve noted before, the Anniversary event looks are the best the game’s had yet, making them especially desirable.

It already can take hundreds of hours to unlock all the new items by just opening loot box after loot box, but with the best of the Anniversary goods making up the smallest proportion of what’s available — and having the worst probability when it comes to unlocking them naturally — we can’t blame players for getting frustrated about the Anniversary event.