Overwatch 2 team disables Wrecking Ball for the start of OWL season
The Overwatch 2 development team disabled Wrecking Ball on the beta starting Tuesday, and this will last through the opening weekend of the Overwatch League’s 2022 season.
According to developers, Wrecking Ball is causing game-crashing bugs, which the team is aiming to fix as soon as possible. Even with their knowledge of the problem, the team decided to disable the hero from the beta, effectively banning him for the first weekend of the Overwatch League.
This bug only applies to Overwatch 2. Regular Overwatch is unaffected by any issues with the hero.
I know we said no hero pools for 2022… but this time is different! Turns out Wrecking Ball's powers are a bit too strong for OWL servers too, so we'll be disabling him for this weekend, but should get our furry friend in by next week 🐹 https://t.co/PhKYELIHbU
— Sean Miller (@sean_mmills) May 3, 2022
The 2022 OWL season starts without Wrecking Ball
Due to the 5v5 changes, Wrecking Ball hasn’t seen much use in the Overwatch 2 beta. In comparison to other tanks (or heroes in general), his minimal changes don’t help him fit the new game style. Upcomer ranked Wrecking Ball as the worst hero in the beta right now due to those reasons. Yet, even with those impressions from the beta, pro players won’t have access to him on the opening weekend.
As for the issue itself, the game-crashing bug didn’t happen by chance. Players could actively trigger it to crash the game. Dot Esports wrote about the bug in detail, but, essentially, if players rolled around and hit the ground a specific way, everyone in the lobby would be booted out except for the Wrecking Ball player.
New bug allows to crash everyones game as ball while looking down and grappling the floor while mid air pic.twitter.com/6lPC0xMuI8
— Boston Fine (@InfektedOW) May 2, 2022
The Overwatch team quickly responded to this, banning Wrecking Ball from the beta the same day. Then, the next day, head of the Overwatch League Sean Miller confirmed that Wrecking Ball wouldn’t be available for OWL’s start in 2022.
Miller also confirmed the team is trying to have Wrecking Ball available as soon as next week.
About the Author
Polish-Canadian game enthusiast. I've been entrenched in gaming for as long as I can remember, with my first game being Pokemon Yellow and my most played games being Borderlands 2 and Overwatch. I have a degree in Film Studies, but writing about esports just makes my job all the better.
