Overwatch 2 has received a ton of criticism since its release, but Blizzard is finally trying to address some of the concerns of players across the world.
headline image courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
Ever since it released in October of 2022, Overwatch 2 has been on the receiving end of endless criticism due to many of the ways in which the game has been developed and run. This includes a battlepass system which seems almost pay-to-win at time, overly priced micro-transactions, terrible match-making systems, unpunished cheaters, and even unbalanced heroes. Some of these complaints have finally been heard by the estranged Blizzard Entertainment, who have made changes to the matchmaking system, the ranking system, and given out some big nerfs where necessary – but even bigger than that is a new initiative regarding the overall “Defense Matrix” of the game, which deals with keeping the game fair, safe, and free of toxic behaviour.
Since the beginning of Overwatch 2, Blizzard have reportedly taken action on over 50,000 accounts for cheating, but coming from the start of Season 3, which goes live on February 7th, there will be even greater punishments to be aware of. Players who choose to team up with accounts that have been flagged for and punished for cheating will need to look out, as Blizzard plan on punishing them too, whether they themselves are cheating. This means that if you have friends who you know are cheating, it’s best to avoid them when playing moving forward.
Additionally, an improvement comes for those that stream their Overwatch 2 gameplay, as “stream sniping” has always been an issue for these players. Whether they are Bronze or Grandmaster, streamers have often found themselves unable to play a fair game, even with the added delay of streaming platforms such as Twitch.tv. Blizzard have now implemented a rather easy fix which makes it possible for players to hide their BattleTag and those of others in their games, as well as delaying their own matchmaking for an amount of time.
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All-in-all, it seems that Blizzard Entertainment are putting in a lot of work when it comes to fixing some of the issues within Overwatch 2. After creating a huge amount of hype when the original Overwatch game released, much of it has unravelled over the past few months. However, with these changes, and many more which are announced, Overwatch 2 hopes to bring back and keep players within a fair ecosystem of competitive play.
