Blizzard has announced a new system to defend Overwatch 2 against player disturbances such as cheating, and it comes with some new restrictions. The Defense Matrix Initiative will be introduced with the launch of Overwatch 2, and part of it will require new players to grind 100 matches to unlock all the original Overwatch heroes. This is meant to ease players into the game by “teaching them about different modes, rules, and other high-level aspects of the game in an approachable way”, according to the official blog.
First, new players will need to unlock all game modes and the in-game chat function, which is said to be a quick experience. After this, over the course of 100 matches, new players in Overwatch 2 will be unlocking the old heroes gradually until they have them all. The ability to enter Competitive matches will also be locked to new players, only opening once the player has 50 victories in Quick Play.
Interestingly, new players can also pay their way out of unlocking all heroes and Competitive mode, should they purchase the $40 Watchpoint Pack. Overwatch 2 has already faced some criticism and confusion over how it features heroes in its paid and free Battle Passes, and this news may not help. Future heroes will be an unlockable part of free Battle Passes, or will be unlocked immediately with the Premium Battle Pass. You can read our full explanation of how the Battle Pass and Watchpoint Pack work over here.
Blizzard is taking the urge to prevent cheating and disturbances very seriously, even having mandatory phone numbers assigned to each player profile. Each profile can only have one phone number, limiting the amount of accounts a player can make to the amount of phone numbers they have. The blog also lists a few more safety features, such as Overwatch 2 removing level portraits to prevent toxicity between players with differing levels, as well as introducing new machine learning audio transcription to monitor in-game voice activity.
Will you be trying out the free-to-play launch of Overwatch 2 next week? Let us know in the comments below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more gaming news.
