Overwatch has had PvE modes for a long time, but none as thrilling as Overwatch 2's (open in new tab) Halloween mission, Wrath of the Bride.

Wrath of the Bride is a sequel to the Junkenstein's Revenge mode that kept Overwatch 1 players grinding away at their loot boxes for years. New monster-hunting troops will be introduced: the Junker Queen, Sojourne, Ash, and Chirico. They are each equipped with Halloween Terror skins and dropped into a medieval fantasy horror story set in a fictional German town.

Unlike Junkenstein's Revenge's stationary horde mode framework, Wrath of the Bride resembles (but on a much smaller scale) a co-op shooter like Left 4 Dead or Vermintide. Zombified robots and bosses are torn apart along a map that is a drastically modified version of the regular PvP map. There are objectives, such as having to find keys in random locations to unlock gates, and boss monsters with unique abilities that interfere with what could be a simple shooting gallery.

Boss fights, at least on the harder difficulties, require tactical use of the abilities of the four heroes to dodge or nullify their high-damage attacks. I played the tank Yunker Queen and took on the Double Gargoyle Winston fight (a map that already has a bonfire, and you'll never convince me that this isn't a reference to The Bell Gargoyles boss in Dark Souls). The gargoyles move similarly to how enemy players play Winston. He jumps in, electrocutes you with his Tesla Cannon, and hides behind a large bubble shield. They fly all over your team just as regular Zomniks crawl out of their castles and explode, dealing nearly lethal damage. The trick is to use the Junker Queen's throwing knife ability to pull them out of their bubble. That way, your team won't have to waste precious time trying to break the bubble.

Like MMO bosses (but different from regular Overwatch PvP matches), tanking in Wrath of the Bride requires a lot of crowd control, applying Juncker Queen's abilities to regain strength while drawing the enemy away from the team. In the final battle against the ghostly Sigma, with immortal monsters like Nemesis and Mr. X chasing us, it was my job as queen to surround him in the throne room and buy my team time to take down weaker enemies and damage the boss, Sombra. And when an ally went down, I used her Commanding Shout to temporarily restore her strength so that she could withstand revival.

In a solo encounter with Sigma, Chirico used teleportation to instantly escape pursuit. Sojan's disruptor shot was also very useful in slowing down a group of Zomniks who had taken him by surprise, giving him time to regain his position and finish them off.

In Overwatch's PvE mode, you rarely feel like racking your brains for the right boss encounter; some of the special challenge modes Blizzard has developed in the past, such as strategically splitting up enemies so you can damage them Some came close, but mostly there were arbitrary difficulty spikes that made success feel like a roll of the dice rather than the result of close teamwork. I remember spending days trying to finish the Legendary PvE mission "Retribution" without anyone dying.

While the Bride's Wrath certainly gets stale after a few attempts, especially on the lower difficulty modes, this is the first time I've felt that a difficult achievement was not only possible, but analyzable The PvE missions include four difficulty modes to complete, a boss intro photobomb, a boss destruction, specific actions during certain battles, and a list of other challenges to complete. None of them seem particularly difficult, so perhaps most of the rewards are sprays, voice lines, and Battle Pass XP.

I'm glad "Wrath of the Bride" isn't a rehash of the same template as "Junkenstein's Revenge".

Halloween Terror is usually my favorite Overwatch event. All of the monster and witch skins are totally my favorite, but the Overwatch 2 versions are a bit sparser than in previous years. The only new skins in the store right now are Witch Chirico (sold in bundles for 2,600 Overwatch coins, or about $25) and Executioner Junker Queen (1,900 Overwatch coins, or about $20). There are no Epic Tier skins to be won in the Weekly Challenge, and of course no loot boxes filled with cosmetics. This is the first time during a Halloween event that I haven't felt the urge to play a bunch of games just to see what I could get. (Opens in a new tab). No more surprises or anticipation. Buy the skins or don't buy them, which is a shame for the first "Overwatch 2" holiday event. The base game already had so few cosmetics worth bothering with.

"Bride's Fury" is the most engaging of the events, and perhaps the first in "Overwatch 2" that actually feels like sequel material. The shifting objectives, propulsive pace, and challenging bosses suggest that Blizzard may have quite a few tricks up its sleeve for the story-based PvE mode coming next year. While not groundbreaking, it does give me hope for a game that has robbed me of most of my optimism.

The Halloween Terror event will run from October 25 through November 8.