This annoying Overwatch feature is still plaguing players years later

Emotes are a common social feature in multiplayer titles meant for fun, but Overwatch has always been a bit too unreasonable about it by not letting players cancel the animation. 

In a Reddit post dated Nov. 23, an Overwatch 2 player named u/spacewarp2 stressed the importance of being able to auto-cancel emotes in the hero shooter. Asking why it’s like this, they highlighted the dangers of using emotes outside of the spawn room.

“I literally never taunt in the spawn room because you’re stuck in a long 5 second unbreakable emote,” spacewarp2 wrote. “That’s more than enough time for an enemy to come in and awkwardly stare at you before murdering you before you can even move.” 

In a competitive game like Overwatch 2, no one would normally choose to gamble their life away for taunting an enemy, and players are shying away from using or buying emotes for the same reason. All it takes is adding a keybind players can use to cancel an activated emote in times of need, but Blizzard isn’t, for some reason, entertaining it. While the post expectedly attracted several nods and supportive comments, one player highlighted a hilarious Hanzo animation where he eats Sushi for an overly long time. “I hate that emote. Why do I need to eat two sushi before I can cancel that fucking emote,” another player replied. 

To top it off, the emote button is right there beside the “Thanks” button on the wheel, so if a player mistakenly chooses the emote button, they’re stuck in the animation with no option to cancel. “The amount of time I have emoted and fucked it up because I wanted to say thanks,” another popular comment read, amid several similar expressions. While Overwatch 2 never allowed canceling emotes, 2016’s Overwatch used to allow it, but it was removed after players began abusing the third-person view that heroes get when emoting, also pointed out by CrookIrish887 in a comment. 

Some players have seemingly accepted the way it is, accepting the cons of trying to emote mid-game and taking it lightly. “The commitment to the emote is the whole point. It shows that you are willing to die to send the appropriate message and it also leads to funny screw ups when you inevitably fat finger an emote at the wrong time,” one interesting comment read. I guess you could see it that way too. 

Whether Blizzard will add an emote cancel option to please the Overwatch 2 community is a story for the future.