The sound of D.Va screaming “Initiating defense matrix” is heard ringing throughout the lands within Overwatch 2 today as the devs have banned 500k accounts that had accusations of cheating.
Season 12 of Overwatch 2 began yesterday, and with it came the official initialization of Defense Matrix, the initiative that works to make Overwatch 2 less cheater-friendly and more fair. Cheating is not just an issue isolated to Overwatch 2, as we know just a few short months ago hundreds of accounts were banned in Star Citizen for choosing cheats rather than playing fair. As most of us have experienced ourselves, whether in Overwatch 2, Call of Duty, or any form of competitive shooter, aim-bots can suck the fun out of any game within a matter of moments.
Blizzard developers are not just banning accounts for cheating today, as they plan on integrating anti-cheat technology to remove cheaters from the title where they stand. Yes, reports are still important for the time being, but the overall goal is to continue making great strides to stop cheaters before they wreck us over and over in late-night matches.
One key feature coming in Season 12 is the Avoid as Teammate feature that allows us to pick and choose up to 15 players to avoid being teamed up with during queues. The devs think we should be able to rely on our teammates, and there is nothing worse than a healer who purposely throws a match due to a vendetta with a fellow teammate or an alliance with the opposition.
Reporting players in-match has been something that was not plausible for some time, forcing us to wait until the inevitable loss from a Soldier 76 with aim-bot destroying us for the entire match. The team is optimizing in-match reports, meaning we will now have a “quick two-click button” that allows us to file a report on a player in real-time during our matches.
While these changes may not take cheaters out of the game entirely for now, we can continue to report and hope that the anti-cheat tech in the pipeline prevents those rowdy players from ruining our fun.
