Overwatch 2 Under Several DDoS Attacks On Launch Day

Overwatch is Blizzard Enertainment‘s team-based multiplayer first-person shooter. Upon release, it was acclaimed for its art design, multiplayer mechanics, characters, and so much more. Now, after much anticipation, Overwatch 2 has finally arrived and it is free-to-play, unlike the first game was initially.

Overwatch 2, however, has been having issues since it went live recently. Many players were hit with long queue times, stability issues, matchmaking, and several other issues.

For an online game to encounter issues to face such issues is nothing new as there are many factors that can only be accounted for and faced upon launch, but Overwatch 2 is suffering from something else instead.

The game was hit with a massive DDoS attack on launch, which was noticed and acknowledged by the developers themselves, and if that was not enough, it was hit with another DDoS attack recently too.

Major Takeaways:

• Overwatch 2’s netcode issues are due to a massive DDoS attack on launch.
• It was recently hit with a second DDoS attack, developers are hard at work to restore the game to peak condition.

Although Overwatch 2 was much-anticipated, it seems that not everybody seems to think so. No specific group or person has yet laid claim to being the one behind the attacks, but this is not uncommon in the gaming industry. Recently Final Fantasy XIV was the subject of one such DDoS attack as well, which led to many issues for the players.

Overwatch 2 was having many issues upon launch, a fact that was acknowledged by Blizzard Entertainment President Mike Ybarra.

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. https://t.co/4GwrfHEiBE

— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) October 4, 2022

As stated by Ybarra, the mass DDoS attack was causing a lot of drops and connection issues with the game. However, the issues have persisted, with many blaming Blizzard for being lax and not dedicated enough to the fanbase, however, it would seem that it was not Blizzard’s fault.

Aaron Keller, the director of Overwatch 2, then gave an update on the situation as issues were persisting with the game.

We’re steadily making progress on server issues and stability, as well as working through a second DDoS attack. We’re all hands on deck and will continue to work throughout the night. Thank you for your patience – we’ll share more info as it becomes available.

— Aaron Keller (@aaronkellerOW) October 5, 2022

It appears that the game was struck by yet another DDoS attack. This has led to very long queues, matchmaking issues, drops, high pings, and login errors, among a variety of other issues.

For those unaware, a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack occurs when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system, usually one or more web servers. A DDoS attack uses more than one unique IP Address or multiple machines, often from thousands of hosts infected with malware.

This overloads the capacity of the victim’s servers, leading to the problems that Overwatch 2 is currently facing. Who is behind such a malevolent act, is up for debate.

Blizzard incurred the disdain of many fans when it announced that Overwatch 2 would require a phone number to be connected to your account for you to be able to play it, and not just Overwatch 2, it would be required for future releases as well on Battle.net.

This was explained by a blog post on the official website. It stated that “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Overwatch 2, newly created Call of Duty: Modern Warfare accounts, require that you add a phone number to your Battle.net account.”

This step was taken by Blizzard in an attempt to improve the security of future titles by limiting the number of accounts that can be created. Many did not sit well with this decision, voicing their concerns on Twitter, forums, and social media in general that this was a breach of their privacy that they did not wish to entertain as they were hesitant to hand over their private information.

This, combined with the fact that Overwatch 2 may also record voice chats for ‘better security’ led many players to question Blizzard’s practices and overtly explicit surveillance and monitoring that may affect everybody’s privacy.

Perhaps some angry fans of these measures banded together and are trying to make Blizzard and Overwatch 2 suffer to sate their anger with Blizzard, but this is also affecting the many players who just wish to play the game peacefully and enjoy a solid experience of multiplayer with their friends, that they had been waiting for.

Currently, there has been no major update regarding the situation, and the various issues yet persist, causing a great deal of frustration for not only the developers but also the players. We hope that Blizzard Entertainment is able to overcome these odds and that Overwatch 2 emerges as an even stronger game as a result.

Till that time, we will keep you posted with the latest updates regarding the situation.

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