Blizzard will revert bans for players affected by rare Overwatch bug

Players banned from Overwatch due to a rare Competitive Play bug will see their bans reversed, according to game director Jeff Kaplan.

Reports began circulating yesterday about the bug, which gets Overwatch players caught in a loop waiting for a players to join a Competitive Play game. The match repeatedly tries to start and continuously fails. Players lose hundreds of rank points and often end up with a season ban from Competitive Play, despite no prior infractions.

“We recently identified a bug that, in extremely rare cases, can cause players to lose their skill rating progress and receive a seasonal ban from Competitive Play without any prior penalties for leaving early or being kicked for inactivity,” Kaplan said on the Overwatch forum. “This bug is a high priority for our team, and we’re working on a fix to prevent further instances of it occurring as we speak.”

Related: Yikes—there’s a rare Overwatch bug that could get you banned from Competitive Play

No more than 200 accounts have been affected by this bug, Kaplan added. The Blizzard team will continue to monitor for occurrences of it and provide assistance to players impacted by it. While working on a permanent fix, Blizzard will remove seasonal bands from played affected and restore lost skill rating.

There is no estimated time for the fix, but Kaplan will keep fans updated as progress is made.

Fans began to get nervous as Sept. 27 approached, as Blizzard is implementing a new three-strike policy for bans. Players who’ve amassed three or more season bans in Overwatch’s competitive ladder are now eligible for a permanent ban from the game.

Despite no fix being named, players impacted no longer have to worry about their accounts. Blizzard will take care of wrongfully banned players.