Six years after the first title, fans are finally getting to experience their first moments with Overwatch 2. The first beta for the highly-anticipated Blizzard title is open until May 17, following years of speculation, delays, and the occasional worry that the sequel may be completely canceled. The beta is giving fans access to new maps and completely reworked 5v5 gameplay. As fun as players are having jumping into Overwatch 2, one group is already disrupting things in the worst way.
In only three days, the beta has been overrun with hackers using aimbots and other cheats to completely ruin other players’ fun. The Twitter user Anti-Cheat Police Department addressed the issue yesterday, questioning how Blizzard is planning on handling this problem going forward.
Activision Blizzard has been seeking out ways to disrupt cheaters for some time, recently implementing the Ricochet anti-cheat system into Call of Duty: Warzone. Overwatch 2 players are hoping that the company uses the data collected to stop hackers from ruining the experience when the game finally releases next year.
Overwatch 2 was unveiled in 2019. New game modes and heroes were teased, and it was announced that those who already own the original title would be getting the game for free. Last month, Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller apologized to fans for his lack of transparency, promising that daily playtests on the sequel were underway.
“I want to thank our players for your continued support. We recognize that we haven’t communicated well, haven’t kept you up to date and, honestly, we’ve let you down when it comes to developing Overwatch content,” he said. “Based on your feedback we’ve taken some time to rethink Overwatch 2, with the singular goal of making sure it’s a living game, serving our players with exciting content on a regular basis.”
The first Overwatch title was released on May 24, 2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. A Nintendo Switch port was released in October 2019, and an optimized performance patch for the Xbox Series X/S was released in March 2021.
Overwatch 2 is currently in development. Blizzard has stated that the game will finally be released sometime in 2023.