Overwatch 2 Offering Double XP and Free Skin as Apology For Rough Launch

Blizzard has offered players double XP, a weapon charm, and a free skin to make up for Overwatch 2‘s rough launch.

The developer apologised to its fans for the initial issues in a blog post, and also announced that it would run several double XP weekends for players to catch up after the game was often unplayable during its first week. For a number of days Overwatch 2 was plagued with long queue times, controversial policies, and the removal of certain heroes.

Anyone who logs in between October 25 and December 6 will also be given a new legendary skin for Reaper, the Cursed Captain, alongside a Health Pack weapon charm.

When #Overwatch2 launch is bumpy you make it up to players 😤

Besides making progress on bug fixes & stabilization, we’ve got goodies to share with all players

🚑 Health Pack Weapon Charm
🏴‍☠️ Cursed Captain Reaper
🎉 2x Match XP weekends

How to get em https://t.co/pU6b13P0ww pic.twitter.com/Pzs1RvnWFu— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) October 11, 2022

“Since the launch of Overwatch 2, we’ve been blown away by your excitement, and incredibly moved by the sheer number of you experiencing our game. But we know we have run into some significant issues as well,” Blizzard said in the post.

“We’re committed to consistently investigating issues as they arise, working quickly towards fixes, and being transparent with our community on the status of Overwatch 2.”

Issues began almost immediately after the game launched as Blizzard suffered from several DDoS attacks that stopped a lot of players from getting into Overwatch 2 at all. Further issues emerged as a result of new Blizzard policies that required players to connect a phone number to their account before playing.

Though the requirement was implemented as a security feature, Blizzard quickly backtracked and removed the feature for most of its players, only requiring those with new accounts to attach a phone number.

Further controversy emerged, however, as fans using pre-paid phone packages found they were not considered viable for the service and as a result they couldn’t play Overwatch 2.

Blizzard was then forced to temporarily remove Bastion and Torbjörn from Overwatch 2 due to both characters causing serious bugs, with the former’s Ultimate being completely broken. A glitch allowed the attack, which usually lets players fire a powerful blast up to three times within seconds, to be shot as many times as players can within that time.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.