Today, Overwatch announced PachiMArchi Challenge, the newest event that celebrates the game strange mascot half onion, half octopus Pachimari. Starting today, players who win games in Quick Play, Arcade or Competitive mode can win Pachimari-themed cosmetics, including a Pachimari Roadhog skin that is, depending on your inclination, very fluffy or extremely unsettling.
Watching the trailer feels like you’re being held hostage to a feverish dream of a primary color. It’s totally chaotic how Roadhog and his partner (romantic, platonic, who’s to say? They’ll never tell) Junkrat take turns displaying their Pachimari prizes while playing in Japanese. It’s very big “Never give up“Energy.
Pachimari is a fan favorite. Whenever my friends and I play Overwatch together, we had an unspoken rule that the player’s icon had to be a kind of Pachimari. I even have a Pachimari teddy. He sits beside my bed watching me with his round black eyes, his mouth open to devour me or to cry out in agony * ahem *.
It makes sense that the Roadhog was chosen to be the face of PachiMArchi Challenge. He has an emote called a “secret friend” in which the imposing tank character, who never speaks more than five words at a time, covertly pulls out a Pachimari toy and hisses it before hiding it again. I’m still not sure which field I fit between “cute” or “nightmare inducer”, but I can say this: I want a real version of that hat.