Overwatch teases new Symmetra skin event & adds Zenyatta lore

Blizzard has released a brand new Overwatch short story starring Symmetra and, surprisingly enough, Zenyatta, that’s all leading into an upcoming mini-event.

Overwatch has released several short stories in the past to pad out its lore in the last year or so, and they usually coincide with a short event where players can unlock an exclusive skin like Ana’s Bastet Challenge.

The latest story is called “Stone by Stone” and is written by author Christie Golden. While Symmetra is certainly the star of this read, Zenyatta also makes an appearance, marking his first-ever Overwatch canonical appearance of any real significance (he did appear in one panel during the 2016 “Reflections” Christmas comic, but that’s about it).

Along with the tale, we’ll also be getting a new mini-event called Symmetra’s Restoration challenge, which gets going on November 17.

In “Stone by Stone” Symmetra, whose real name is Satya Vaswani, is tasked with finding out how to compensate a local village for damage done to a temple by her employer, the Vishkar Corporation. While there, she meets with Zenyatta who more than makes up for his years of no lore whatsoever.

Golden did a great job of making up for that lost time and really brought the Omnic monk to life through her writing and, as Zen is tossing out pearls of wisdom as he would discord orbs throughout the short read.

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We won’t spoil the full thing for you, so if you want to read the full story (which we highly recommend), you can check it out right here.

Besides the big news of Zenyatta finally getting some backstory, there’s also a new Symmetra skin making the rounds, that will be available in the upcoming mini-event.

The gold and black skin will be available to players who win nine games in any mode, just like the past Overwatch lore events for Mercy, Baptiste, and Ana. This event will be focused on Sym, but based on the amount of attention Zenyatta gets in the story too, we wouldn’t be surprised to see something for him eventually down the road.

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Symmetra’s Restoration Challenge begins on November 17, and players will have two weeks until November 30 to get all nine wins and unlock the new cosmetics. Be sure to get all of your wins in before things end, because the spray, player icon, and skin will not be available again after the event wraps up.

It certainly seems like Christmas has come a few weeks early this year, especially for all those Symmetra mains and everyone eager to finally get some much-needed Zenyatta lore.