Blizzard takes the Overwatch 2 servers back offline to fix more of the issues that surfaced during the game’s rocky launch. The company plans to shut down the game at approximately 9:00 p.m. ET (6:00 p.m. PT) and expects downtime to last for an hour. This downtime will be the third in two days, as Blizzard had to take the game offline twice on Thursday.
Blizzard has detailed the fixes in the works and some updates for some of the bigger issues in a post on his forums. In Friday night’s downtime, Blizzard plans to fix Watchpoint Packs that aren’t available to players who pre-ordered them, as well as address the LC-208 bug that prevents some players from logging in.
In Friday’s post, Blizzard confirmed that the change in SMS Protect phone number requirements is now officially in effect. Original, Overwatch 2 players had to have a postpaid phone number on their account to play. However, in response to the outcry from players, Blizzard said it would relax the policy so that people who overwatch with a Battle.net account connected, it was no longer necessary to register a phone number to play the sequel.
“Weekend gamer hours will be the biggest test yet”
The company is also investigating the long wait times players may experience for matches. To address them, “we’re changing configurations within this system today and hope to shorten that wait somewhat during the day,” Blizzard said in the post.
Blizzard is optimistic about the fixes it implemented on Thursday. The changes “resulted in a fourfold increase in our capacity and an eventual reduction in login queues overnight,” the forum post said. Blizzard will continue to monitor things in the coming days, as “weekend gamer hours will be the biggest test yet.” Hopefully it all starts to run a little smoother for Overwatch 2.
