OG Overwatch 2 players are finding their characters locked away in frustrating character select bug

Overwatch 2 is out, and is having a range of serious problems in its early days. This includes a massive DDOS attack that has led to server queues up in the 40,000s, as well as a a mandatory phone verification system for players (although this has now been removed for Overwatch 1 players). However, that doesn’t mean that original Overwatch players are out of the mud quite yet, as some are finding their hero roster locked away.

This bug is likely a result of the intended new-player experience for those who weren’t Overwatch 1 players, as this group will need to grind through over 100 matches in order to unlock all of the original roster.The bad news is that it seems like the game is applying this restriction to players who are anything but new, forcing them to reboot the game as the only current fix which throws them back into the queue.

This includes Reddit user GumpaGumpa, who posted their issue onto the Overwatch 2 Reddit yesterday showing their largely locked roster. Below the original post, numerous other players express their frustration with the bug, and some even claiming a single restart didn’t help at all, leaving them still without their full arsenal of characters several hours later.

GumpaGumpa had been playing since 2018, and was initially hyped for the game when it was first announced. They and their friends all woke up and jumped in the queue on launch day earlier this week, all waiting roughly four hours before being able to play any games. Once they all made it through, the locking issue was immediately present.

“On the first day, the first few games I played with friends had it [characters] locked, but I reloaded the game and I had everything back,” says GumpaGumpa over Reddit DMs. “Then I went to bed and the second day I had everything locked again, and that's when I made the post and got comments saying I should reload the game, which worked. But my friend had his roster locked as well, and it took him around 5-6 reloads to get them all back.”

You wanna know why this sucks beyond the obvious frustration of the bug? Overwatch 2 is a game focused around team composition and counter picks — this has always been the case. Yes you can just lock in Tracer but that won’t always be the best pick, which is why you may have noticed hardcore players getting frustrated with onetricks in Overwatch.

If you have the majority of the roster locked away, you obviously can’t play around with this counter-pick side of the game. For new players, this doesn’t really matter, but for Overwatch 1 players who had their game turned off and now have to brute force themselves through reboots and huge queues to play the game as it should be played. It sucks.

As of right now, there is no fix aside from a reboot. While I’m sure there’s a fix in the works, this means that right now Overwatch 2 is a massive pain to play for OG players. Here’s hoping it gets fixed soon, otherwise people might start wishing Overwatch 1 didn’t get deleted after all…

For more Overwatch 2 articles you can read while in the queue, we have: Overwatch 2 is the latest in a long line of terrible game launches – and I’m not even talking about the queues.