‘Overwatch 2’ no longer requires older players to verify their phone number

Even Blizzard has admitted that Overwatch 2s launch has met no one’s expectations. Detailing in a new post the latest status updates Before the game’s rollout, the company has apologized to its players and discussed the long list of issues it has faced since the first-person shooter went live. One of the biggest updates to the game is that older players no longer need to link their phone numbers to Battle.net in order to play. As long as they have a connected Battle.net account, which covers all players who used the first one overwatch since June 9, 2021 they are exempt from the requirement.

Blizzard originally created SMS Protect, requiring players to associate a phone number with their Battle.net accounts, a requirement to access overwatch as a way to make it harder for people to cheat or troll others. However, it doesn’t always work with numbers associated with prepaid plans, and therein lies the problem. While some Mint customers have been able to link their numbers to SMS Protect just fine, players on Cricket seem completely shut out of the game. As Kotaku reports, fans feel like they are being punished or shameful for ‘being poor’.

The developer is removing the requirement in response and expects the change to go live on October 7. However, Blizzard said it “remains committed to combating disruptive behavior”, and therefore new accounts and old accounts that have never been connected to Battle.net before will still need to meet the SMS Protect requirements in order to play. .

The company has also made changes to simplify the queuing process so that players no longer see their queue numbers jumping from hundreds to tens of thousands and vice versa. In addition, it is working on making logins more stable to prevent players from being removed from queues or not being able to login at all. A server update also underway will reduce the chances of players losing connection once they are already in the game. As for people’s missing items, Blizzard explained that the problem is caused by incomplete account merging or items simply taking longer to transfer from the old game.

These issues, Blizzard said in its announcement, were “exacerbated by DDoS attacks” at the game’s launch. Although the attacks did not cause any of them directly, they made “the environment in which” [the team works] more challenging on these issues.” Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller said the team was working on a second DDoS attack late on launch day, but it sounds like the attackers have backed off. Blizzard said it “has had no further attacks,” which hopefully means it can now resolve issues faster.