Overwatch is in the midst of its Winter Wonderland 2021 event, giving fans of the hero shooter the chance to try out seasonal game modes and unlock holiday-themed skins. Like every year, Blizzard released a slew of new Winter Wonderland skins, including one for Damage hero Genji. However, it seems that the new Winter Wonderland skin for Genji, Ice Wraith Genji, may actually give players a slight advantage in certain situations.
It was pointed out on Reddit by user DinoDracko that the Overwatch Ice Wraith Genji skin has a unique trait. When Genji players are deflecting with Genji's sword, one of the ice tips on the sword lines up with the crosshair. This doesn't seem like that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it does apparently give Genji players with the Ice Wraith skin a slight advantage against certain heroes in the game.
It's been pointed out by some Overwatch players that this added visual aid makes it much easier for Genji to aim reflected shots back at opponents. This is particularly true when it comes to precision heroes like Ashe and Cassidy and snipers like Widowmaker. It may not be enough to call the Genji Winter Wonderland 2021 skin "pay to win," but it definitely seems to give the skin an advantage that other Genji skins do not have.
It's unclear if Blizzard thinks this is a big enough deal to bother changing the skin at all. It has not publicly acknowledged the situation yet and has not provided any indication as to whether or not there may be an update in Ice Wraith Genji's future. For now, Genji mains in Overwatch may want to get their hands on the skin to see if it gives them a leg up on the competition, though doing so may be a tad difficult.
The Ice Wraith Genji skin in Overwatch is one of the new legendary skins for Winter Wonderland 2021. The skin can be obtained at random from Overwatch loot boxes, with such a deep pool of cosmetics and the chance to get duplicates, there's no guarantee that one will get the skin that way. The other method is to purchase the skin for 3,000 credits, which is quite the chunk of change.
Patient Overwatch players can wait until next year's Winter Wonderland event to get the Ice Wraith Genji skin at a discount, but at that point Blizzard may have already changed it enough so that this trick doesn't matter. Otherwise players can keep their fingers crossed that they get lucky with Overwatch loot boxes while the Winter Wonderland event is active. It ends on January 6, so fans still have a couple of weeks to go.
Overwatch is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
