Overwatch 2 team announces new anticheat initiatives

Blizzard confirmed that Overwatch 2 has been used by "over 40,000,000 players". They also provided details about their "Defense Matrix Initiative," a program that appears to be "making strides toward a"

Blizzard confirmed that Overwatch 2 has been used by "over 40,000,000 players". They also provided details about their "Defense Matrix Initiative," a program that is "making strides toward a fair gaming experience for all players." This is the big one. This is the big one.

Blizzard has begun to implement voice-to-text transcription as well as "AI learning" for moderation. This was implemented in Season 2.

Blizzard claims they have "already started working to stop disruptive players with applicable Chat silencing, account suspensions, and other appropriate actions as required"Considerations for streamers and all players are a constant concern in the ever-growing gaming industry. Although stream sniping (the attempt to disrupt a streamer's stream by queuing up in a game), is a difficult problem to solve, Blizzard is trying to mitigate it. This is the most important policy rollout. "Players will be able hide their current BattleTag and hide the tags of other players in the same game that they are playing in on their own client. This will prevent others from seeing the live stream of a player and identifying them if they are in the same lobby. Players can now hide the current queue time or delay it until the game starts to find a match. Replay codes can now be hidden from the game client. These features will be available for all players starting in Season 3. You can find them in the Social options section of your settings.

Blizzard has also reiterated their commitment to removing cheaters and noted that "over 50K accounts" have been closed. Season 3 will allow them to identify cheaters more easily with the Defense Matrix Initiative. They will also be able to sanction players who "knowingly group up" with cheaters, which will result in suspensions (while the player who is directly using the cheats will be permanently banned).We'll see how this one goes! Overwatch 2 and Blizzard in general aren't in a good place in terms of public perception. I expect that this aspect of the initiative will prove to be the most difficult to enforce moving forward.