• Overwatch 2 has officially launched, but its developers haven’t been able to get any sleep.
• The game was struck by not one but two DDoS attacks just eight hours after going online.
• Overwatch 2’s success could finally bring positive publicity to Blizzard which has recently been entangled in significant controversy.

Overwatch 2 is officially live as of the 4th of October 2022, but Blizzard’s highly anticipated free-to-play team shooter has had a launch that will no doubt be historic for followers of the gaming industry.

Apart from the average bugs and server snafus that accompany most major AAA game launches nowadays, Overwatch 2 has had the misfortune to have been struck by not one but two DDoS attacks just eight hours after first going online.

Overwatch 2 under attack

The first DDoS attack was announced by Blizzard president Mike Ybarra in response to a previous announcement detailing server issues with Overwatch 2.

“Unfortunately we are experiencing a mass DDoS attack on our servers. Teams are working hard to mitigate/manage. This is causing a lot of drop/connection issues,” Ybarra wrote.

Aaron Keller, the game’s director, posted on his Twitter at around 12:30 am that his team was working through a second DDoS attack. Both attacks struck mere hours after the game launched.

“We’re steadily making progress on server issues and stability,” Keller wrote. “We’re all hands on deck and will continue to work throughout the night.”

Blizzard’s server woes continue

To exacerbate things further, a vocal portion of players who have managed to access the game are raising concerns about missing cosmetic features and in-game currencies.

We are aware of an issue causing Happi Genji to not show as unlocked for players that purchased it before today. We're working alongside the game team on a solution, and will keep the community updated as we know more.

— Sean Miller (@sean_mmills) October 4, 2022

Those that weren’t lucky enough to get online have been complaining about long wait queues and server connection issues since the launch.

The creator of World of Warcraft is infamous for its server issues. It seems like almost every launch the company manages has some sort of problem with players connecting. Horror stories of impossibly long wait queues have been shared by the company’s fans since the launch of Burning Crusade in 2007.

Luckily for fans desperate to jump on Overwatch 2, what this also means is that Blizzard is more than capable of sorting these issues out and most of the server problems should be ironed out within the new few days. After all, having servers that are too full of clamouring gamers is a good problem to have.

Blizzard’s strategy of making the game free-to-play will likely pay off for the company seeing as the launch has summoned significant interest online and on social media even after a relatively quiet period from the company in terms of Overwatch 2 news.

Similar techniques have paid huge dividends for companies like Epic with Fortnite and recently with Warner Bros’ games’ Multiverses which in a span of a few weeks became one of the most-played fighting games ever made with over 20 million players.

The company possibly posting about the game’s resounding success would be some welcome positive publicity. Blizzard seems to be nearly constantly entangled in negative press in recent years.

Recently, LEGO indefinitely halted the release of a licensed Overwatch toy due to Blizzard’s toxic behaviour, including allegations of widespread sexual harassment of employees, among many others.

Last year, executives from three giants of the gaming industry; Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, publicly criticised the actions of employees and management at Activision Blizzard. Microsoft even had to go as far as opening a website where it could explain itself and its reasons for the tech giant’s ongoing $68.7 billion acquisition of Blizzard Entertainment.

As of now, Blizzard has yet to announce if any further complications have arisen from the Overwatch 2 launch, or if it has managed to clear some of the existing issues on its servers.

[Image – Blizzard Entertainment]