The current state of Overwatch 2 is haunted, and it’s not due to the game‘s numerous bugs. Recently, players of Blizzard’s hero shooter may have observed a disturbing occurrence: on one loading screen, a number of avatars were scattered about in spooky A and T stances. How ominously appropriate, given how near it is heading to Halloween.
Long wait times and inaccessible characters are only a couple of the problems that have plagued Overwatch 2 since its release this month. To put it mildly, the game’s release hasn’t gone off without a hitch. Now that the most serious problems have been addressed (though they still exist), players are becoming alarmed by a less pressing but more disturbing issue: bizarre avatars posing on the Ilios loading screen.
One of the few maps from the first game that was discontinued after the rough launch of Overwatch 2 is Ilios, a Capture the Flag and Control map. The map isn’t too frightening on its own, what with the cheerful sun in the background and the tasteful buildings that dot the landscape.
Recently, though, players have been taking a deeper look, and as expected, they’ve discovered something nasty. Screenshots of the unnerving tiny grayed-out people who appear on the Ilios loading screen randomly stuck in A and T stances have been posted all over the internet, from Reddit to Twitter.
Kotaku fired up Overwatch 2 to see if the eerie replicas were indeed present, and they are as of this writing.
Once we had a custom game set up and were waiting for Ilios to load, we noticed the strange avatars standing there like scarecrows, ready to frighten any players who were naive enough to go seeking them. Something along the lines of this being a mere coincidence or a leftover from the game’s development is most likely the case.
It’s probable that this error won’t last long, given how quickly Blizzard is making changes to the game to address the myriad difficulties afflicting the live service hero shooter.
Of course, having a few little men in the background of something that most may not even notice is probably low on the priority list compared to some of the other concerns players are suffering, such as locked rosters or frequent disconnects. Nonetheless, they are eerie if you aren’t prepared for them.
The hero shooter has been a broken disaster ever since its October 4 release. Multiple distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults rendered it unusable for certain users; a chat bug purchased in-game skins without players’ knowledge or agreement; an error message prevented users from joining their friends in-game, and a number of other problems persist in this day.
As Blizzard works to resolve difficulties with its ability sets, players may also notice that certain characters, such as Torbjorn and Bastion, are temporarily unavailable in certain game types.