What Does the Overwatch 2 DDOS Attack Mean? Explained

What a great way to kick off the launch of Overwatch 2. It’s a miracle if a big multiplayer game launches without any server hiccups or login issues. While we’re seeing that unfold right now with all sorts of error messages, the game is now facing a slew of new external problems. Overwatch 2 is being hit by a DDoS attack. What in the world is a DDoS attack and how is it affecting the servers right now? We can explain that here.

Overwatch 2 is Being Hit by a DDOS Attack. What Does it Mean?

A DDoS, short for Distributed Denial of Service, is when an attacker overloads a particular network’s servers. In doing so, it effectively shuts down most functionality and heavily slows down server communications.

If you have ever tried to snag a highly sought-out item on the internet like a PlayStation 5 or a limited-release item like sneakers, the websites you buy them from will start to act slower. There are so many people trying to buy this item that’s in limited stock. Because there’s an overloading number of requests to get in and buy these example items, the sites start to slow down or crash. They can’t handle this many requests.

In the case of Overwatch 2, someone with malicious intent essentially ran a botnet program that created several instances of “users” to flood Activision-Blizzard’s internet traffic. The game was already being heavily impacted by an influx of new and old users just wanting to play the game and check it out. It was experiencing long server queue times and giving people network error messages.

https://twitter.com/Qwik/status/1577396593153564672

In a recent Tweet sent out by Mike Ybarra, the President of Blizzard Entertainment, he stated that the team working on Overwatch 2 is “experiencing a mass DDoS attack.” So, not only are they trying to mitigate server issues to accommodate for a large number of players, but there are also several generated bots heavily slowing down the traffic and server speeds for Blizzard.

You might be running into issues being placed in a queue of over 40,000 players. The number goes down to 0 just to tell you that you experienced some kind of connection error. Now you have to start over and be placed in a queue behind thousands more.

Hopefully, the team fixes this and the perpetrators behind this attack are dealt with somehow. It’s unfortunate that on launch day, things can’t always run smoothly. But to have third parties rain on everybody else’s parade is something that will only sour the experience for all.

Overwatch 2 is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.