Overwatch 2 update addresses ‘accidental purchases’ chat bug

A new Overwatch 2 update addresses several major issues in Blizzard’s FPS game including a chat bug that was seemingly causing accidental purchases in the in-game shop. The update also includes the previously announced removal of Overwatch 2 phone verification as a requirement for players who have already previously played the original multiplayer game, and to help resolve account merge issues.

The chat bug in question, detailed by a user on the Overwatch Reddit page, was apparently causing text typed into the game’s chat window to be also interpreted as input for menu navigation. This meant that if someone was looking at an item that could be unlocked, simply typing the space bar in chat twice – something that’s easy to do quickly if chatting to other players – would cause the item to be purchased.

Dracyoshi, who reported the original bug, says that updates deployed during the maintenance period, which ran for approximately one hour from 7pm PT / 10pm ET on October 7 (3am BST / 4am CEST on October 8), seem to have fixed the issue with chat. They say that they have “still not been refunded and I doubt I ever will be” for the purchase made, with a response from Blizzard confirming that “We are not able to offer refunds or any compensation for unlocks made with in-game currency in Overwatch.”

In addition, Blizzard says its database upgrades following extended Overwatch 2 server downtime have “resulted in a quadrupling of our capacity and an eventual reduction in login queues overnight.” It remarks that “early signs are good” but that “weekend gamer hours will be its biggest test yet.”

In addition, Blizzard notes that this higher concurrent player count means that “matchmaking systems are being affected,” leading to longer queue times between games. It says that it is making changes to matchmaking configurations that it hopes will shorten queue times, but will continue to monitor it moving into the weekend.

Meanwhile, plenty of players are still reporting that many of their roster of Overwatch 2 heroes are locked as they are mistakenly placed into Blizzard’s newly implemented ‘first-time player experience’ system. Some players who didn’t have heroes locked say that it has now happened to them between updates – I personally also ran into this issue on one version of the game, but not when logging into another version on the same account.

This particular issue is not addressed directly in the latest status update. Blizzard does however note that many players are still in the account merge process and still missing items from their collection that they previously owned in the first game, but that the upgraded database leaves “more bandwidth to complete these merges.” Hopefully the problem is resolved as soon as possible, because players reporting that they found themselves in competitive games with only three characters available is certainly not an ideal look moving into those aforementioned ‘weekend gamer hours.’

If Overwatch 2 is part of your plans, be sure to check our Overwatch 2 tier list for the best heroes right now, as well as our guide to the current Overwatch 2 meta. If you’re just getting started, here’s all the Overwatch 2 changes you need to know about, as well as an explanation of Overwatch 2 competitive ranks and the best Overwatch 2 settings. Game director Aaron Keller has revealed that the Overwatch 2 season 2 hero is “someone players have seen before,” leading to plenty of speculation among fans.