Today, Ear Watch announced the PachiMarchi Challenge, the latest opportunity to celebrate the match strange half-onion, half-octopus mascot 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, depending on your tendency, is very cute or extremely upsetting.
Looking at the trailer feels like you are being held hostage in a primary color fever dream. This is wholesomely chaotic as Roadhog and his mate (romantic, platonic, who can say? They will never tell) Junkrat take turns displaying their Pachimari prizes while chatting in Japanese. It is very big “Never give up“Energy.
Pachimari is a favorite for fans. Every time my friends and I played Ear Watch together we had an unspoken rule that your player icon should be a taste of Pachimari. I even have a Pachimari plushie. It sits by my bed and looks at me with its beads, black eyes, open mouth to devour me or release a scream of anxiety * ahem *.
It makes sense that Roadhog was chosen to be the face of the PachiMarchi Challenge. He has an emote called ‘secret friend’ in which the imposing tank character, who never speaks more than five words at a time, sneaks out of a Pachimari toy and squeaks before being separated again. I’m still not sure which camp I fall into between ‘cute’ or ‘nightmare-inducing’, but I can say this: I want a real version of the hat.