Overwatch 2’s tenth season is officially underway, and everybody’s pretty happy with the new damage hero Venture, and the fact that they (and the rest of the Overwatch 2 cast) are officially free for everyone after being locked behind the battle pass for over a year. Blizzard has also added several foundational changes with season 10, like an incredibly expensive Mythic Skin shop and changes to try and make the game less toxic. It also, apparently, has made ranked queue times insufferably long.
High-level Overwatch 2 players on social media and Blizzard’s forums are reporting massive queue times in competitive play after the beginning of season 10. These range anywhere from 30 minutes to well over an hour in some cases. They’re so bad, streamers are taking to playing other games like Fortnite or Dead By Daylight while waiting because they can start and finish a match in the time it takes for Overwatch 2 to find one.
Some of these players reference “wide matches,” a new feature that allows players of disparate ranks to group up and play together, in their posts. Blizzard said outright that these matches would likely have higher queue time as they would only matchmake against other wide groups in an attempt at fairness. But I don’t think anyone was expecting wait times this large. Even without the wide group factor, it appears some are still running into longer queue times when playing strictly in their own rank.
Overwatch 2 fans have been asking to play ranked matches with friends of different ranks for years. It’s one of the major reasons I haven’t jumped into competitive play (even though I’ve been playing since Soldier: 76 was confirmed gay in 2019), because I don’t like worrying about my own rank when I can’t reliably coordinate with a team. My friends and I couldn’t play together because they’ve played ranked for years and are in higher tiers than me after putting the time in. Now that the feature is available, the only way to play with friends of disparate ranks is to spend longer waiting for a match than it would take to actually play one as the matchmaker struggles to find a compatible opposing team. You might as well just jump into Quick Play so you can actually push a payload.
While the queue times and expensive Mythic Shop have gone over poorly, Venture, and the upcoming Mirrorwatch event have been well-received by fans. The theme for season 10 recasts heroes as villains and vice versa. Villains like Sombra, Doomfist, and Widowmaker in the classic Overwatch blue-and-white have taken most of the marketing spotlight, but there are some more off-the-beaten-path remixes like Symmetra and Genji as “junkers” similar to Junkrat and Roadhog. It’s a real neat theme and makes me wish a Talon version of Soldier: 76 made the cut. I’ll just have to be content with Overwatch Sombra, my beloved.