More than a full day after Overwatch 2’s worldwide launch, players are still struggling to get into the game and stay connected thanks to unstable servers.
Soon after the game launched yesterday at 2pm CT, Blizzard Entertainment’s servers were hit with a DDoS attack. Players were already receiving error messages and disconnections before the attack thanks to the massive volume of users attempting to log in and play at the same time. After the DDoS began, logins slowed to a crawl, with players reporting endless queues and frequent disconnects. Blizzard president Mike Ybarra assured players that the team was working hard to minimize the attack.
About six hours later, at 11:30pm CT, Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller tweeted that the team was “making progress” on stabilizing the servers. He also revealed that the game’s servers had been hit with a second DDoS attack and that engineering teams were going to work all night to get things fixed for players. He promised to share more when the team had made strides, but the next update has yet to arrive, at least from Blizzard’s U.S. offices.
At 10am CT, the official Overwatch EU account tweeted that server work is still ongoing. They encouraged players to keep an eye on Blizzard’s customer support accounts for additional updates. Neither the EU nor the Americas Blizzard support accounts have tweeted anything about server issues since then, though the EU account did share a list of known bugs and issues in the game.
Almost 25 hours have passed since the game’s launch. The servers appear to be slightly more stable at time of writing. Several members of Dot Esports’ staff were able to log in successfully within the last several hours, but queue times are still extremely long and rife with disconnects and error messages. Players are also being kicked out of matches in progress, leading some to avoid playing Competitive mode altogether in fear of losing rank.
Fan reception has been mostly negative so far, with many complaining about the time it’s taking for Blizzard to stabilize the servers and the lack of updates. The community has been in turmoil recently over the company’s decision to require postpaid phone numbers for its SMS Protect requirement and the locking of new heroes behind the game’s battle pass, leaving many feeling as though their inability to get into the game adds insult to injury.
