Overwatch 2 has had a rough go the last few days since launch, that's for certain. The team at Blizzard released an update to the fans late last night detailing ways they are ensuring players can get into the hero shooter.
One of the biggest announcements is that Blizzard is removing the phone requirement from the majority of Overwatch players. You might recall yesterday we reported on incidents where those who used a pre-paid cell phone number were unable to link their account with their Blizzard account, resulting in those players being unable to actually play the new hero shooter. Well, Blizzard is trying to make it easier for players, especially those who have consistently played Overwatch in the past, to jump into the action.
While the move stops short of allowing pre-paid cell numbers to work on SMS Protect, their 2FA service being used for Overwatch 2, they do state that the majority of Overwatch players, starting on October 7th, to be able to log in without needing a phone number.
"We designed Overwatch 2 to be a live service, which enables us to be responsive to a variety of player feedback. We have made the decision to remove phone number requirements for a majority of existing Overwatch players. Any Overwatch player with a connected Battle.net account, which includes all players who have played since June 9, 2021, will not have to provide a phone number to play. We are working to make this change and expect it to go live on Friday, October 7. We will update players once it is in effect."
Additionally, for those players who are seeing long queues when trying to log in and play, Overwatch 2's team states that they should start to see those queues shorten, but still face queue times in the interim. Blizzard has made some improvements to the login experience, but it's still going to be a bit while they work this out.
In the meantime, those who do hop into Overwatch 2 and don't see their stuff from previous Overwatch experiences should know that Blizzard states that no data has been lost. This is due to an incomplete account merge. However, in some cases it could be an issue with transferring items from OG Overwatch to Overwatch 2. However, for those in the latter category, Blizzard states that fixes are coming and asks in the post to open up a support ticket if you're still experiencing the issue.
Finally, in response to the DDoS attack that hammered the servers on day one, the fact that they happened slowed any efforts to fix the issues plaguing Overwatch 2, but Blizzard states that since then they have not been hit with any more attacks.
You can read the full post on the Overwatch 2 website.
