Overwatch 2 Got Off To A Seriously Rocky Start
Blizzard's long-awaited "Overwatch 2" launched on October 4 after extensive beta testing. However, not everyone participated in the betas, nor were they planning on giving the full release of "Overwatch 2" a shot. Many didn't feel that "Overwatch 2" featured enough changes or new content to warrant a sequel (per Forbes). In addition, many fans were displeased to hear that the few new heroes added would be immediately locked behind a battle pass and substantial grind.
Still, many long-time "Overwatch" fans were ecstatic to dive into the new content coming with "Overwatch 2" Season 1. Some of the new content includes new maps, a new support hero, and a handful of new skins. But unfortunately, when players tried to log on to "Overwatch 2" on launch day, most were met with nothing but problems.
On top of the myriad of minor issues Blizzard's Community Manager has discussed in a post-launch blog post, such as bugs and problems with the controversial SMS feature that requires players link their account to their phone number, "Overwatch 2" hit several roadblocks. The most glaring issue was that most players couldn't even log into the game due to long queue times and server problems. Those who were able to eventually log in found that some of their favorite in-game items were missing.
Players can't log in and cosmetics are missing
When logging into "Overwatch 2" for the first time, gamers immediately reported being forced into a queue behind thousands of players. This left some gamers waiting hours to get into a single "Overwatch 2" match. Even the lucky players who did get into "Overwatch 2" reported experiencing server errors shortly after, forcing them to the back of the line again.
In response to the complaints, President of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Ybarra acknowledged the issue on Twitter, writing that the team was working on the server issues. In a follow-up Tweet, Ybarra explained, "Unfortunately we are experiencing a mass DDoS attack on our servers. Teams are working hard to mitigate/manage. This is causing a lot of drop/connection issues." Still, fans were disappointed, as the servers showed no improvement almost 24 hours after launch. In the wake of these holdups, some gamers criticized the company for not having what they deemed adequate DDoS protection.
After finally logging in and looking at their armory, many players also reported missing cosmetics. Some even wrote that all of their cosmetics were gone, and all heroes were locked like their account was reset. Additionally, some gamers reported graphical issues resulting in every characters' hair being invisible. The dogpile of these issues has undoubtedly left a bad first impression of "Overwatch 2" for many players.