Between server errors, broken account merges, and a strange SMS requirement that locked some players with prepaid phone plans out of the game, Overwatch 2’s launch on Tuesday became fairly controversial. Now, Blizzard is apologizing and working to fix some of these issues.
In a post on Blizzard’s forum, community manager Jodie apologized for the game’s launch and detailed some of the ways the team is working to fix these issues.
“First, we want to apologize to our players. We expected the launch of Overwatch 2 to go smoothly,” the post reads. “We hold ourselves to a higher standard and we are working hard to resolve the issues you are experiencing.”
Overwatch 2 introduced a requirement for players to connect a phone number, which oddly doesn’t allow prepaid phone plans. The post explains that Overwatch players with connected Battle.net accounts won’t need to provide a phone number starting on Friday. However, it doesn’t apppear that Blizzard has entirely removed this requirement.
Blizzard is also working to improve server stability — after countless players dealt with crashes, lengthy queues and difficulty logging in, it’s now working on numerous ways to stabilize these servers, including patching the login server and adding nodes to the player database to lessen the load.
Finally, some players who merged multiple accounts dealt with missing inventory items. To combat this, Blizzard is now rolling out a UI fix to prompt more players to merge their accounts. The company is also assuring players it hasn’t lost any of their data — in many cases, it’s just taking a long time to merge over to Overwatch 2.
It’s been a rough launch, including multiple DDoS attacks on release day, but the game itself remains more than solid. We gave Overwatch 2 an 8/10 in our review, calling it a “very fun team-based FPS, packed full of charm and love for the world it takes place in.”