Overwatch’s Mei is finally back after her Kiriko-induced leave of absence
Hopefully no more hero hiatuses going forward.
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Mei, Overwatch 2’s Mr. Freeze-esque killer with a friendly and bumbling personality,is once again playableafter 17 days' unpaid leave. She’s the second legacy hero to betemporarily removedfrom the game since its launch October 4, with fellow day-one heroBastionhaving been relegated to the sidelines last month due to exploits with his abilities.
Blizzard put Mei in the penalty box on October 31 after players discovered an exploit with her Ice Wall ability. With a Mei and a Kiriko working in tandem, you couldglitch yourself outside the mapwhile still in the safety of your team’s base. From the Shadow Realm, you’d still have access to hero swap, letting you switch to a character like Symmetra and wreak havoc on the enemy team from underneath the map.
With the exploit patched, Mei is now free to unleash frosty Mei-hem in Overwatch 2 once more.The patch notesalso outline a host of other balance changes, bug fixes, and adjustments, notably including the rollout ofaudio transcription-based moderation. I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect ofActivision-Blizzard recording my voice, but also about half of the worst things I’ve ever heard came from Overwatch 1 voice chat, so this is a perfect net neutral for me.
The patch also implementedthe big hero nerfswe reported on last month. Genji, Sombra, D.Va, and Kiriko have all been taken down a peg, and you can say goodbye to infinite bubble raid boss Zarya. New to the list is Junkrat, who now takes longer to arm his traps, and heroes are stuck in them a half second less now.
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Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister’s copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he’s not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch.
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