Overwatch fans have been (virtually) lining up in droves since Overwatch 2’s launch on Oct. 4. For the past 48 hours, though, the game’s servers have been struggling amid DDoS attacks and issues with authentication. Unfortunately, the only real fix appears to be taking the servers offline to apply updates that will hopefully repair some of the issues.
The developers announced that Overwatch 2’s servers will be taken down today, Oct. 6, for one hour at 5pm CT (or 3pm PT) to put out “a fix to address some bugs related to account merge, login, and the First Time User Experience,” according to a forum post.
The servers will then be taken down once again on Oct. 6, this time for three hours, from 8pm CT to approximately 11pm CT, depending on how long the changes take. This lengthy downtime is necessary to add “significant upgrades to our databases to address player queues,” according to Blizzard’s post.
Since the launch on Oct. 4, players have encountered a variety of problems with Overwatch 2. The most apparent has been the often lengthy queue to log in, sometimes topping multiple hours. Changing servers from North America to Asia or Europe seemed to reduce the issue, but didn’t entirely work for all players. Those who merged console accounts are also encountering authentication issues.
Once players got into the game, there were even more issues. Items that players had previously unlocked in the base game were not showing up due to server sync problems. One of the more hilarious yet frustrating issues was that of locked or missing heroes. Existing players were being incorrectly tagged as users who needed to undergo the First Time User Experience (FTUE), so they only had the 13 starter heroes the game gives them.
Though the game will technically be up and running from 6pm CT to 8pm CT, it may be a great night to let the developers do their thing and step out of the queue for the time being.
