Our guide-in-progress for the new special event arriving with the Year of the Rooster update.
Our Capture the Rooster guide contains everything that’s currently known about the new game mode, and will be continuously updated with new tips and strategies for smashing the competition!
The latest special event to be added to Overwatch is called the Year of the Rooster, and with this new Chinese New Year theme comes a new game mode called Capture the Rooster. It’s a capture-the-flag affair for all intents and purposes but, you know, roosters.
Elsewhere on the site you’ll be able to find guides to unlocking all of the cosmetic content in the latest update, but we wanted to put together a Capture the Rooster guide that should hopefully give you the edge! While capture-the-flag has been a much-request feature for the game, this is the first time we’ve seen this sort of scenario. Hopefully we can get you up to speed nice and quickly.
Before we do a teardown of how best to play this mode, here’s another look at that gorgeous, high quality trailer.
Overview
Here’s everything we know about the new mode since it went live on the Overwatch servers:
- Capture the Rooster is a 6 v 6 capture-the-flag battle.
- It is set on all three sections of the Lijiang Tower map.
- Each team has a flag at their designated base.
- The challenge is to invade the other team’s base, steal their flag, and return it to your home base. At the same time, you have to ensure your own flag is defended well!
- The first to reach three captures wins the event.
- If the time runs out, the team with the most caps wins the match. Draws are possible – and are, in fact, quite frequent – too.
Our most popular Overwatch guides:
Tips, tricks and strategies for Capture the Rooster
Stylosa of Unit Lost Gaming certainly knows his way around a map or two in Overwatch, and so your best starting point is to watch his video on the mode. This will give you a good grounding in how matches in this mode typically flow.
The following tips were all provided by geeksplatform reader Mrawesomeboss11!
- Teams will often consist of high-mobility offense heroes capturing the enemy flag, and defense heroes defending your flag.
- Hereos like Genji, Tracer and Sombra [Editor’s note: D.VA too] with their high mobility and speed will be quite useful, especially Sombra who can place a Translocator, go invisible, capture the flag, then translocate back to her team.
- Heroes like Mei, Torbjorn and Bastion will also be seen quite a bit (possible with a pocket Mercy), defending their team’s flag.
- Lucio can provide this team with valuable speed boosts and heals.
- The 2-3 second capturing timer will reset every time you take damage.
- If you see a team member has captured the flag, divert to assist them back to base.
- Be wary of traps laid by Junkrat on the flag, and likewise Symmetra turrets nearby.
- On the subject of Symmetra, make sure the enemy hasn’t put a teleporter in a corner near your base for a quick follow-up capture.
