Overwatch 2 has launched and its been plagued with issues since the moment the free-to-play hero shooter opened publicly for players.

Long login queues and server stability have been an issue where players have been forced to wait for a long amount of time just to get into the game, let alone get into matchmaking.

The above issues come from what Blizzard claims to be a DDoS attack, which hit the servers nearly the same time the game launched. This naturally made working on these issues more difficult, but Blizzard says that there have been no further attacks since then.

Now Blizzard has announced that they will be slightly rolling back the controversial requirement of having to connect a phone number your user account just to be able to play Overwatch 2, though it’s not a complete fall back on their original plans.

“We designed Overwatch 2 to be a live service, which enables us to be responsive to a variety of player feedback.” community manager Jodie said. “We have made the decision to remove phone number requirements for a majority of existing Overwatch players. Any Overwatch player with a connected Battle.net account, which includes all players who have played since June 9, 2021, will not have to provide a phone number to play.”

So those who have been veteran players of the now replaced Overwatch are not required to connect any phone number. This does not apply to those who are trying out the new game for the first time, though.

According to their update, those who do not input a phone number are still a part of their “SMS Protect” requirements, which they plan on using to combat cheating and to ban accounts of players engaging in “disruptive behavior”.