Last night, after many players found themselves unable to access a dozen or more members of their Overwatch 2 rosters, and following a week of non-stop issues, I saw angry fans demanding that Blizzard make it right by rewarding them for their wasted time. And Blizzard acknowledged just a couple of days ago that the developer knew the launch period for the hero shooter was “frustrating” for many. In an effort to ease these ongoing tensions, Blizzard has now issued both a status update and will be giving out some free goodies on top of that.
The developer continues to work on stabilizing the game, Blizzard says, and a patch for Overwatch 2 should be hitting sometime later this week. No specifics beyond that, but based on conversations I’ve had with other players, it seems that things like account merging, and connection issues continue to hurt the game. Some are even getting banned temporarily from ranked modes because of the disconnects, while others are seeing their games crash after getting achievements. And, as of this writing, characters like Torbjorn and Bastion still aren’t available in all Overwatch 2 modes as Blizzard tinkers with their bugged abilities. There’s a lot going on.
The game is in a much better place than before, of course, when it wasn’t even possible to log into the game at all. But the list of issues players have encountered since launch is impressive. Perhaps this is why Blizzard is feeling generous right now, compared to how stingy the general Overwatch 2 Battle Pass is.
Here’s Blizzard on what you can expect if you’ve logged into the game anytime between launch and October 25th:
We apologize for any issues players experienced around the game’s launch. To help make up for any lost time, we’re planning to run several Double Match XP weekends: we will confirm the specific dates for these soon. We’ll also be giving all players who log in from October 25 through to the end of Season One an all-new Cursed Captain Reaper Legendary skin and a Health Pack Weapon Charm. These items will become part of your collection from the first time you log in during that time window.
So if you log in and suddenly get bombarded with some gifts, this is why! Tough shit, anyone who doesn’t play Reaper. Let’s just hope nothing unfortunate happens this time. Making a live service game is no easy thing, and I don’t envy the developers who are likely pulling long nights right now. So far, though, it seems like any time Blizzard tries fixing something in Overwatch 2, something else gets borked. For now, though, take a peek at the health pack that you can use as a charm on your guns without having to drop any money on those microtransactions: