Blizzard’s motorboat of Overwatch 2 connected Tuesday did not spell arsenic planned. Many players who attempted to play the revamped Overwatch experienced agelong queue times, were subjected to server errors, were disconnected from games, and had advancement and items not transportation implicit from the archetypal crippled — that is, if they could link to Blizzard’s crippled servers astatine all. On Wednesday evening, Blizzard apologized for the authorities of Overwatch 2’s motorboat and announced a large argumentation change: It volition nary longer require a telephone fig to beryllium attached to a Battle.net account for “a bulk of existing Overwatch players.”

“We person made the determination to region telephone fig requirements for a bulk of existing Overwatch players,” the Overwatch squad said successful a station connected Blizzard’s forums. “Any Overwatch subordinate with a connected Battle.net account, which includes each players who person played since June 9, 2021, volition not person to supply a telephone fig to play.”

Blizzard said it plans to alteration the telephone fig request for Overwatch 2 for existing players by Friday.

Despite lifting the telephone fig request for overmuch of its subordinate base, an inaugural it called SMS Protect, the developer “remain[s] committed to combating disruptive behaviour successful Overwatch 2” and noted that “accounts that were not connected to Battle.net arsenic good arsenic caller accounts volition inactive person to conscionable SMS Protect requirements, which helps to guarantee we’re protecting our assemblage against cheating. If a subordinate is caught engaging successful disruptive behavior, their relationship whitethorn beryllium banned whether they person a caller relationship oregon not.”

Blizzard’s determination to necessitate a telephone fig for Overwatch 2 — and further restrictions astir which types of telephone numbers would conscionable its requirements — was a arguable one. Some players who had pre-paid compartment telephone plans recovered themselves locked retired from playing Overwatch 2, meaning immoderate customers who purchased the archetypal Overwatch, which was replaced by its sequel wholesale, could nary longer play their transcript of the game. That contented was exacerbated by the timing of Blizzard’s announcement of the policy: 1 week earlier Overwatch 2 launched, and good aft the developer started taking pre-orders for add-ons for the game.

As for the presumption of Overwatch 2’s online play, Blizzard said it’s inactive moving to amended stableness for the game’s online service.

“Today we’ve patched a server that is captious to the login experience, and this alteration has accrued login reliability,” the Overwatch squad said. “Beyond queues, we’re successful advancement with different server update that volition trim the occurrences of players being disconnected erstwhile they’re already successful game.”

Blizzard said it has “made changes to simplify the queuing process,” and expects players to spot much streamlined queue times, and is moving to code players being dropped from queues.

In Wednesday evening’s update, Blizzard besides addressed problems with relationship merging and missing subordinate items, and incorrectly locked heroes, each of which it said is being investigated and worked on. Blizzard again noted that Overwatch 2’s motorboat issues “were exacerbated by DDoS attacks,” which person seemingly abated since Tuesday.

Blizzard said updates volition beryllium posted connected the authoritative Overwatch Twitter account (and presumably its forums) arsenic they travel in.