Even Blizzard has admitted that the launch of Overwatch 2 did not live up to everyone’s expectations.
The company apologized to its players and discussed the long list of issues it’s had to deal with since the first-person shooter went live in a new post detailing the latest status updates for the game’s rollout.
One of the most significant changes to the game is the removal of the requirement for legacy players to link their phone numbers to Battle.net in order to play.
They are exempt from the requirement as long as they have a connected Battle.net account, which covers all players who have accessed the first Overwatch since June 9th, 2021.
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Blizzard created SMS Protect, which requires players to link a phone number to their Battle.net accounts in order to access Overwatch, as a way to make it more difficult for people to cheat or troll others. However, it does not always work with numbers associated with prepaid plans, which is the issue.
While some Mint customers were able to successfully link their numbers to SMS Protect, Cricket players appear to be completely locked out of the game. According to Kotaku, fans believe they are being punished or shamed for “being poor.”
In response, the developer is removing the requirement, and the change is expected to go live on October 7th.
Blizzard, on the other hand, stated that it is “committed to combating disruptive behavior,” which is why new accounts, as well as old ones that have never been connected to Battle.net before, will still be required to meet SMS Protect requirements in order to play.
The company also made changes to simplify the queueing process, so that players’ queue numbers will no longer jump from hundreds to tens of thousands and vice versa.
Furthermore, it is working to improve login stability in order to prevent players from being dropped from queues or from being able to login at all.
A server update is also in the works, which will reduce the likelihood of players being disconnected once they’ve entered the game
. Concerning missing items, Blizzard explained that the problem is caused by insufficient account merging or by items simply taking longer to transfer over from the old game.
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These issues, according to Blizzard, were “exacerbated by DDoS attacks” upon the game’s launch. While the attacks were not directly responsible for any of them, they did make “the environment in which [the team] works on these issues more difficult.”
Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller stated that the team was dealing with a second DDoS attack late on launch day, but the attackers appear to have backed off. Blizzard said it has “not suffered any further attacks,” which means it should be able to resolve issues more quickly now.
