Overwatch 2 damage hero Mei has been disabled due to a bug with her Ice Wall. Blizzard made the announcement on the evening of October 31. Mei is the third Overwatch 2 character that has been disabled since the game came out in early October.
The Blizzard Customer Service Twitter account made the announcement that Mei will be disabled in Overwatch 2 due to a bug where her Ice Wall can be placed in unintended locations. It sounds like the bug that the Florida Mayhem used once in an Overwatch League match has reemerged. There are also reports of Mei players being able to walk through or vault their own Ice Wall. Mei's Ice Wall is notoriously used by trolling players to block passageways, so Blizzard has made the choice to take her out of service to limit disruption.
Mei will be disabled until November 15, when the next Overwatch 2 hero balance update will release. News of Mei's removal is mixed. The hero is seen as a nuisance to some players because of her Overwatch 1 ability to freeze and kill characters with a devious smile on her face. Fans of the character of course are frustrated that she is out of the game as it reduces their playable hero pool. This is the third hero that has been disabled since the launch of Overwatch 2. Bastion and Torbjorn were disabled from game modes for a few weeks after some exploits were discovered that allowed their abilities to go on longer than intended.
As popular as the Overwatch 2 launch has been, there has been a long and growing list of issues that players have run into since its release. Maps like Junkertown were temporarily removed from the Season 1 map pool and Numbani is still completely missing from the game. Players have also had issues with the Overwatch 2's store for pricing that seems too expensive, unfair, or potentially illegal in some countries.
All these issues with the game have led some of its dedicated players to call for a boycott of Overwatch 2 so that Blizzard can take their concerns seriously. The boycott's headline issue surrounds the pricing of the items in the game, but news of another hero being disabled due to bugs could be grouped into the other reasons players are organizing the boycott. The match-to-match gameplay can feel great, but all the issues surrounding the game casts a long shadow on the overall sentiments of the game.
Overwatch 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.