Overwatch 2 gets hit by two DDoS attacks on launch
Overwatch 2 has gotten off to a rocky start. While plenty of online-only games, especially a free-to-play one, suffer from long queues and server overload upon launch, this one has been particularly bad with the servers suffering two DDoS attacks during its launch period.
Overwatch 2 launched yesterday and users immediately had trouble getting into games. The subreddit is currently full of posts about the connection issues, including an active, pinned technical issues megathread. The problem got so bad that Blizzard President Mike Ybarra Tweeted out a message acknowledging the server issue and thanking fans for their excitement. Just a half hour later, he revealed the issues were (at least partially) due to a DDoS attack on the servers. Eight hours after, Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller reassured fans the problem was being worked on, while revealing that a second DDoS attack was now overwhelming their servers.
Notably, Blizzard shut down servers for the original Overwatch a little over a day before the launch of Overwatch 2, which likely contributed to these issues as original players were forced to the new title. It also leaves them without any alternative while Blizzard irons out the issues with the new game's servers.