Overwatch 2 Players Get Even More Control Over Who They Play With As Blizzard Expands the Defense Matrix

Blizzard’s been working on making things even more friendly for Overwatch 2 players. Players of the hero shooter are probably familiar with the Defense Matrix Initiative, the company’s effort to make the game “a fun, safe, and inclusive experience” for players. Today, the developer announced several adjustments and features coming to the game just for that purpose.

Aside from giving players a way to avoid trolls and other problem players, the Initiative also focuses on making it easier to play with friends – even if those friends aren’t the same rank as you. To do that, Blizzard is introducing a new type of playgroup to the game, “Wide Groups”. These groups allow players with wider rank ranges to play together and match them against similar groups. The upside is that you can play with your friends. The downside is that queues will probably take longer.

In addition, leveling may not be as fast-paced as they want to discourage players from carrying their friends. Also, Wide Groups have to have a party of five put together, because they’re not going to throw solo players into Wide Group matches.

Another big change being introduced as part of this initiative is penalty updates for leaving matches. Whether competitive or unranked, players who leave frequently will be punished by being forced to wait to be able to queue. The more a player leaves, the longer they have to wait. In the case of unranked players, they may have to go as long as 48 hours before being able to queue again if they keep leaving matches. Competitive players will face harsher restrictions with the biggest being a complete ban from the competitive season.

Also being expanded are the Streamer Protect and Avoid as Teammate systems. The Streamer Protect has been expanded to allow players to “hide” their BattleTag in other people’s streams by creating a fake name for them. Avoid As Teammate will allow players to add more people to the list and then toggle which players they would rather deal with versus those that are absolute no-goes. Unfortunately, it will still only block the top three players, otherwise you might never get a group.

There are a few other changes listed in the post on the Overwatch 2 site. Blizzard has made changes to chat and is introducing faster reporting. Full details on all the changes can be found in the post.