Twitch Prime Leaks Golden Loot Boxes for Overwatch, Guarantees One Legendary

[Update]: Patch 1.12 has gone live with no mention of the Golden Loot Boxes, so it looks like we’ll have to wait a bit longer for the official details.

[Original Story]: Golden Loot Boxes were one of the few things leaked when the anniversary event for Overwatch dropped a few weeks ago. The model and references to it were made within the game’s code, but no one knew for sure what they would do. Today, that veil was lifted, perhaps a bit early, thanks to Twitch Prime.

As part of this month’s Loot for Twitch Prime members, the streaming giant gave out a “Golden Loot box” for Overwatch, which guarantees at least one legendary item. According to the description, these boxes will not contain seasonal event items. Having access to a Twitch Prime account, we can confirm that the code and the loot box worked immediately, even before Patch 1.12 dropped (which should be happening in the next hour or so). In game, the Golden Loot Boxes look like this:

Almost certainly, these Golden Loot Boxes will become a regular item for purchase in Overwatch via the Blizzard store – I doubt the Overwatch team would waste so much effort for just a one-off Twitch Prime giveaway. Two things are unclear, though: how much these golden loot boxes will be in comparison to the normal loot boxes, and if you’ll be able to earn these loot boxes through leveling up the way you do normally.

Likely, this is part of Blizzard’s response to the growing sentiment against loot boxes. This came to a head during the Anniversary event, where every special skin was legendary, making it harder to get them through normal loot box gains. Because of this controversy, resistance in the Overwatch forums was at an all-time high, prompting a response from Game Director Jeff Kaplan in a 5,000(plus)-post thread called “Acknowledging your loot box feedback.”

We’ll likely know more about these loot boxes once the Patch goes live, and we will update this story at that time.