The servers for Overwatch 2 appear to be experiencing a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack less than two hours after going live. What at first appeared to be the usual launch struggles of a popular online game took a turn after Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra took to Twitter with some key updates.
“Unfortunately we are experiencing a mass DDoS attack on our servers,” Ybarra wrote in his message. “Teams are working hard to mitigate/manage. This is causing a lot of drop/connection issues.”
Ybarra had previously thanked players for their enthusiasm and reported that Blizzard engineers were working to resolve what appeared to be normal launch day queue troubles.
A DDOS attack on Overwatch 2 would be frustrating on any normal day, but this one landed less than two hours after the game launched.
That’s a key window when any live game is looking to attract and retain a healthy player base. While today’s disruption probably won’t impact the financial performance of Overwatch 2, it’s definitely one hell of a hit after the game went through such a long development cycle that saw the departure of key team leaders.
We’ve reached out to Blizzard for comment on if the company has any more details about the nature of the attack on its servers.