The troubled launch of Overwatch 2 is a full-blown saga now. As we speak, in an try to deal with points pertaining to Torbjörn and Bastion, Blizzard introduced that it could be pulling the characters fully from some sport modes. Don’t fret when you don’t see them, that half is intentional. Whereas there’s no phrase on how lengthy the characters shall be inaccessible, the transfer is presumably to repair Bastion’s infinite final, together with a Torbjörn skill that lacked its cooldown. In some way, in doing so, Blizzard has created a wholly new downside: A complete swath of characters are now not accessible for some gamers.
Logging in myself, as somebody who beforehand had your complete roster unlocked, I now have 12 characters whom I can now not entry. They’re Doomfist, Sigma, Wrecking Ball, Ashe, Echo, Mei, Sombra, Symmetra, Torbjörn, Zenyatta, Kiriko, Baptiste, and Brigitte. Restarting the sport didn’t assist with unlocking the characters, nor did restarting my PS5. The characters merely retained the little lock icon, regardless that I used to be taking part in with a few of these inaccessible characters simply earlier right this moment. And social media, I’m not alone on this subject: There are a ton of confused people who don’t know what’s occurring proper now, yelling at Blizzard to undo it.
“What’s going on at Blizzard now???” one participant tweeted, whereas commenting on their incapacity to entry their full roster. “Can’t play virtually any of my mains,” one other who’s experiencing the roster subject stated.
This follows after per week of different enormous points, by which gamers couldn’t log into the sport in any respect, had hassle migrating their accounts from the primary Overwatch, couldn’t use pay as you go telephones, and bizarrely, suffered a technical subject whereby the chat may in some way purchase issues from the shop. Whereas all of those points have been mounted or improved, gamers maintain discovering different bugs or unfinished property. It’s all left the impression that Overwatch 2 feels extra like an early-access sport than a fully-fledged, polished, completed product. And with the developer having to tug complete characters and ending up breaking your complete sport within the course of, it’s getting more durable to argue in protection of Overwatch 2 even whether it is enjoyable to play.
Kotaku’s reached out to Blizzard to inquire about this huge bug. From the sounds of it, this isn’t the primary time that some gamers have been locked out of accessing characters since launch, however the subject seems to be considerably extra widespread than earlier than. In line with gamers who skilled the bug previous to right this moment, it took a couple of day for it to resolve.
Replace 11:41 p.m. ET: Overwatch went down for upkeep for an estimated hour, and is now again up when you’re presently studying this. In a discussion board submit that compiles identified points, Blizzard acknowledged the locked characters bug, noting that “That is brought on by a problem with our servers that tracks participant development. We’re working to get this subject resolved as shortly as attainable.” After I initially loaded the sport on PS5, I may entry all my beforehand unlocked roster. Chatting with different gamers, it looks as if a blended bag. Some are discovering the difficulty is now gone, others nonetheless have their characters gone. This tracks, as a result of the locked roster was a factor that some have been experiencing previous to tonight, it simply occurred to massively unfold after the preliminary Torb + Bastion repair. Your mileage might fluctuate. Whereas my roster is again, I now have a completely new subject: I maintain getting kicked out of video games.
Correction 10/10/2022 8:38 p.m. ET: This submit beforehand acknowledged it was over half the roster, when it’s 12 out of 34. Nevertheless, gamers are reporting totally different numbers of inaccessible characters than I personally am experiencing.