Overwatch 2’s much-needed leaver penalty could cause an even bigger issue

Overwatch 2 recently introduced a new leaver penalty system that’s tailored to curb the number of players leaving the matches in season seven. However, some players are pretty skeptical about how effective it could be at stopping another issue entirely.

The new leaver penalty, introduced with Oct. 9’s major Overwatch 2 update, drew concern from players who are quite conflicted over the feature, as it can introduce another predicament in the form of trolling and AFKing.

Simply put, some believe players who would previously leave matches with limited repercussions will now simply AFK in spawn or do nothing in the game but run around, emote, and spray. They will refuse to play the game and players deem this even more frustrating than leavers who eventually would be replaced by other players.

In some instances, leavers were replaced with people who were much better and gave the players a win even though the situation was dire. “Now those people are [going to] be forced to stay and basically throw,” one player said.

According to Blizzard, the leaver penalties that were implemented work in two “penalty thresholds.” Once a player reaches the first threshold, the players are suspended from matchmaking for 10 minutes. If they reach the second, it rises up to 30 minutes. The way the system determines this is by analyzing the last 20 matches you played.

Leaving four matches in the last 20 will send you to the first threshold and leaving six will raise you to the second threshold. Players drew comparisons to games like League of Legends and VALORANT where there are suspensions in place for players that left games.

For example, League has a queue dodging system where if you enter champion select and leave it for some reason, you’re going to be penalized by not being able to queue for six minutes. If you’re playing a ranked match, you’ll also receive a deduction in league points.

Since Overwatch 2’s season seven is still new, the new leaver penalty system has the chance to prove itself. Will it curb leavers or make the situation even worse? Only time will tell.