Rare Overwatch Skins Explained

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 promotions. Rarity is a mechanic in Overwatch and Overwatch 2 which dictates the quality of various cosmetics in the game. Rarity has no bearing on gameplay, but is a method of distinguishing how unique a cosmetic item is, as well as the price of the item. Every cosmetic item in the game has a rarity tier assigned to it. Cosmetic items can be accessed via the Hero Gallery, which displays the individual rarity tier for each item.

Overwatch Skin Rarity Tiers

Each hero has several skins from each cosmetic rarity tier. The rarity tiers are as follows:

• Common: The base cosmetic and original appearance of a hero. Common skins, emotes, and highlight intros cannot be obtained beyond the ones received when creating a new account. The default appearance of each cosmetic item.
• Rare: Rare skins are simple re-colorings of the default skin. Each hero has four Rare skins that change the primary color of the hero's default skin. Rare items include skins, victory poses, and player icons.
• Epic: Epic skins are either advanced re-colorings of the base appearance of a hero, or colorings with slight three dimensional additions. As a whole, these skins do not drastically alter the silhouette of a hero. Epic items include skins, emotes, highlight intros, souvenirs, and Weapon Charms.
• Legendary: Legendary Skins are skins which drastically alter the hero's silhouette, changing their weapon model, colors, and outfit. Legendary skins greatly alter the hero's model and overall appearance by reworking the hero and weapons' models. Legendary items include skins, weapon skins, and a select few emotes. Legendary emotes involve more complex and unique animations, such as Orisa's Puppy or D.Va's Game On emotes.
• Mythic: Mythic skins were added in Overwatch 2. They can be bought in the Mythic Shop using Mythic Prisms, which can be earned through the Battle Pass. Mythic skins have varying levels of customization: the base level of customization costs 50, with further levels costing an additional 10. Currently, only skins can be of Mythic rarity. Mythic items alter the hero's visual appearance to a greater degree than Legendary ones.

All heroes have one Common voice line as well as one of each Common highlight intro, emote, and victory pose.

Unavailable and Limited-Time Skins

Some Overwatch 1 skins have been unavailable for purchase in the Hero-Gallery despite most of them being obtainable for Credits. Such skins have the 'Locked' icon and display the text "Currently unavailable".

Some skins have been made available only through limited-time events in both Overwatch and Overwatch 2. These skins were unlocked by completing an in-game challenge during the corresponding event. During Overwatch 1 this often included winning 9 Arcade matches, and in Overwatch 2 this often included completing any games with wins granting double progress. These skins were unlocked using a variety of methods that included logging into the game, purchasing with coins or real-life currency, watching Twitch streams, progressing in the battle pass, or completing in-game challenges.

Notable Unavailable and Event Skins:

• Season 4 Starter Pack: Infinite Ace (D.Va)
• Season 4 Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle: Infinite Guard (Soldier: 76) and Infinite Ace (D.Va)
• Season 12 Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle: Heist (D.Va)
• Mercy: Dr.
• Sigma: M.

Extremely Rare and Exclusive Skins

Stable statistics on the rarity for certain character skins were 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. However, 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.

Top Rare Skins:

1. Zarya Alien Skin

   This skin has a very unusual story, which rightfully made it unique and the rarest in the game. Blizzard created a series of unique skins in honor of the best players in the Overwatch League. Each skin was sold for 200 League Tokens. This particular skin was dedicated to player Jay “Sinatraa” Won who achieved great success with the San Francisco Shock. He proved himself to be an outstanding player for Zarya, so he got 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. In 2021, Jay "Sinatraa" Won became the victim of a sexual harassment scandal. 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.

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 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.

   Thank You, Heroes | Pink Mercy Charity Campaign Recap | Overwatch (EU)

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.

4. Bastion BlizzCon 2016 Skin

   This skin is even rarer than the future Winston BlizzCon 2017 Skin. 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. In addition, 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. Of course, you can still find activation codes with this skin, but their price is extremely high.

5. Winston BlizzCon 2017 Skin

   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. Again, 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.

6. Illidan and Tyrande Skins

   This skin duo made a real rustle among fans of Blizzard games for good reason. The fact is, collaborations with Starcraft in Overwatch turned out to be not very popular, but there were much more fans of World of Warcraft who played Overwatch. So when Genji and Symmetra were shown these skins as a gift for buying a ticket to BlizzCon, they became a real gift. The collaboration turned out to be a success and the skins themselves were also much better than those that could be obtained before. However, it still seemed very unfair to many to pay $49.99 for The BlizzCon 2019 Virtual Ticket. Symmetra is also a rather specific character, who is not very popular. Her abilities are very specific and useful for the team only at certain points in the game on some maps. Apparently, these and some other factors have had an impact on the fact that not the largest number of players have such skins.

7. Reinhardt Raynor Skin

   In 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. 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, but no. Here is the most common appearance, which, 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, but the “Raynhardt” legendary skin was only available in the Heroic ($39.99) or Epic ($59.99) packs.

8. Brigitte Medic Skin

   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. But, unfortunately, 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. However, 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. After that, 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. In general, 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 the 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.

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. Of course, 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.

10. Widowmaker Kerrigan Skin

    In 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.

Overwatch 2 Mythic Skins

Mythic skins were added in Overwatch 2 and represent the highest tier of cosmetic rarity. They can be purchased in the Mythic Shop using Mythic Prisms, which are earned through the Battle Pass. Mythic skins offer varying levels of customization, with the base level costing 50 Mythic Prisms and further levels costing an additional 10.

Skins Unavailable Due to Controversy

Some skins have been removed from the game due to controversial circumstances surrounding the players or events they were associated with.

• Zarya Alien (OWL Skin): This was an Overwatch League (OWL) skin available as a tribute to Jay “Sinatraa” Won, a former OWL MVP. Due to sexual harassment allegations against Won, the skin was removed for purchase from the game. Players were given the option to refund their OWL tokens if they did not wish to keep the skin. Some elements referring to Jay “Sinatraa” Won were also removed from the skin.

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