Overwatch 2 has banned 250,000+ cheaters since launch

Blizzard says it’s taking “big steps” to discourage cheating, and has banned over 250,000 players since Overwatch 2 launched as part of its “zero-tolerance policy toward cheating and botting”.

In a detailed update posted to the official website, the team revealed what it was doing to tackle “disruptive behaviour and cheating”, as well as disruptive chat and griefing issues “that negatively impact many multiplayer video games”.

“We’ve been taking big steps to help discourage and remove disruptive behaviour and cheating and wanted to share more details with you,” the team began. “Defense Matrix is the name for our collection of efforts to quell the cheating, disruptive chat, and griefing issues that negatively impact many multiplayer video games, including Overwatch 2.

“These efforts are the product of a dedicated task force of developers, researchers, and community experts, all working to improve our existing systems while finding new ways to counter disruptive behaviours.”

The post goes on to explain that the anti-cheat team were guided by “two core principles”: “Fair is Fun” – “a positive player experience” where all players have the same level playing field – and a “Safe and Inclusive Social Experience” that prevents and discourages disruptive and unwanted behaviours from players.

“Cheaters are never fun to play with, and we have a zero-tolerance policy toward cheating and botting in Overwatch 2. Since Overwatch 2’s launch, we’ve detected and banned over 250,000 accounts for cheating,” the update confirmed.

“We’re continuously refining our anti-cheat detection and prevention systems to strengthen the game against cheating and botting. Your reports help us identify new cheat programs as well as cheating players, so please keep reporting!”

The team also revealed plans to improve text chat, and says no matter what filter you decide to use “it’s never acceptable for anyone to direct disruptive chat toward other players, no matter what language is used”. Consequently, it is removing the Unfiltered chat option entirely as it “allowed harmful language and phrases that have no place in our community”.

“Our filters are constantly updating, but so is the online culture lexicon,” the update said. “If you see anyone using any offensive language that is not being filtered, or anyone working around our filters using altered or misspelled text, please report them in-game for disruptive communication. For all platforms, you can find the report option in the social menu. If you play on a PC, you can also right-click the username directly in text chat.”

Last month, we learned that the hooded figure that’s recently been stalking the Overwatch community lately is none other than John Cena.

That’s right – as part of its marketing plan to get us hyped for Overwatch 2’s next update, Invasion, John Cena has been working with developer Blizzard to “interrupt” the streams of some of the community’s biggest content creators with ominous warnings about the new Invasion update.

Blizzard recently opened up about the impact Overwatch 2 “review bombers” have had on the team, acknowledging that the “dissatisfaction” stems from “the cancellation of the much larger component of PvE that was announced in 2019 […] that Blizzard ultimately couldn’t deliver”.