Overwatch 2’s release was marred with technical issues, as the game’s servers were targeted with DDoS attacks. The issues led to long queue times, with a peak of 40,000 players waiting to be allowed in the game. Unfortunately, DDoS attacks are still an issue three years later.
Blizzard’s attempt at a team-based first-person shooter was released on October 4. Despite no extensive marketing for the new game – which many saw as a reskin of the old Overwatch – the release managed to draw back plenty of players who had stopped playing the previous iteration. Unfortunately, the DDoS attacks didn’t help backlash against Blizard.
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
DDoS is short for Distributed Denial-of-Service, a targeted cyberattack meant to overwhelm a specific website or, in this case, a server. The compromised server was flooded with tons of traffic, causing server and connection issues — and even denying access to the game.
DDoS attacks are often motivated by an individual or group seeking to disrupt and cause chaos intentionally. While it’s an outside source that disrupted Overwatch 2’s servers during its launch and beyond, Blizzard is often blamed for not having the security measures in place to prevent this type of incident.
As far as first impressions go, Overwatch 2 wasn’t a success. Several technical issues with the servers surfaced upon release.
This was not the only issue that players encountered. According to Blizzard President Mike Ybarra, Overwatch 2 was suffering from DDoS attacks. It’s not unusual for a game to have problems at launch. But the number of issues plaguing Overwatch 2 on its opening day was exceptional. Blizzard had to fend off multiple attacks. Even Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller had to go on Twitter to update fans about the slow progress of defending against the attackers.
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
Other problems were the queue times. Up to 40,000 players were in the queue during release. Blizzard has seemingly managed to solve the queue issues, as players were able to enter the game relatively fast on its second day. While a DDoS attack on the scale of the first has luckily never impacted Overwatch 2, it’s still a continued issue plaguing the game and other multiplayer shooters.
It’s been a few years, but DDoS attaks haven’t gone away. Players have continued to share the ways that DDoS attacks have impacted them.
On Reddit just a few days ago, a player noticed that lower-ranked matches seemed impacted by server disruptions. The Pro 1 support detailed how they started playing tank recently and noticed the rookie rank servers were constantly getting disconnected and players kept getting kicked. They said this especially happened while they were performing well.
In the replies, many Overwatch 2 players noted similar experiences, especially when playing Stadium mode. While it can’t be proven to be a DDoS attack, the impacted players noted that there were no connection issues on their side when they experienced the server problems. Overwatch 2 streamers have also been randomly disconnected during livestreams, which are also suspected DDoS attacks.
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