An upcoming patch for popular multiplayer 6v6 shooter Overwatch will reportedly force players to reinstall the entire game. According to Blizzard, this is being done because it’s impossible to do what Blizzard plans to do with the game code without reapplying new versions of a ton of files, including those of the game launcher.
On the forums, customer support rep Drakuloth stated, “The next major patch will have some pretty fundamental changes to the game client. The number of back-end changes we’re putting in is substantial enough that we can’t just patch over the current content efficiently.”
With all the announcements from BlizzCon 2018, even the less-enjoyed ones like Diablo Immortal, fans are really hyped for what the future holds when it comes to Blizzard games. And while this announcement will undoubtedly suck for those with slower or metered bandwidth connections, the payoff should be worth it.
This should translate to some pretty massive long-term overhauls of the games visuals and backend code, making it more immersive and fun for players, and probably making it easier for Blizzard devs to experiment and implement changes in the future. And it’s good that the company is getting this issue out of the way now to avoid having to deal with it when Overwatch is much older. While it’s nice that the company is doing this ahead of time, it’s probably going to require some planning for people with slower connections who will take a while to download 15-20 gigabytes of data.
There’s no firm release date for this initial revamp patch, nor are there any details about what other changes the patch will make, but Blizzard plans to release more details soon. Once more aspects are known closer to the release of said patch, we’ll let you know.
