Overwatch 2 makes major change to punish ‘disruptive’ players in Season 7 update

Season 7 of Overwatch 2 is here and the devs have implemented a major change to help deal with ‘disruptive’ players once and for all.

If there’s one thing about Overwatch that players have hated since the game’s release, it’s leavers. Those who leave games prematurely almost always end up putting their team at a disadvantage, but punishing them has proven to be difficult.

In the past, users who left too many Quick Play games would be punished by through an XP penalty that kept them from leveling up their Battle Pass, but in Season 7, Blizzard is doing something different.

Going forward, leaver penalties will be a bit more like the consequences for leaving a competitive game by issuing suspensions for those who leave too often.

Overwatch 2 takes action against serial leavers with new update

In a blog post, the Overwatch 2 team explained that the 75% penalty for Battle Pass XP wasn’t enough to deter leavers, and different punishments would be needed.

“We want to discourage players from repeatedly leaving games, especially with the intention to disrupt the experience of others,” they expressed.

The devs revealed that in Season 7, players who leave four of their last twenty games will be hit with a 10-minute suspension from queuing for any game mode that grants progression progress.

This means ranked, quick play, arcade and other modes will be off the table until the punishment is served. Furthermore, users who continue to leave games will result in the suspension being upped all the way to 30 minutes.

“We feel this is a balanced approach because it doesn’t directly affect those who are pulled away from the game—allowing them time before queueing again—while also making it tougher for those who deliberately leave to ruin the experience for others,” the devs said.

We’ll have to see if this change can do the desired job and put a stop to users constantly leaving in the middle of the games or if the devs will need to make some adjustments to the penalties.

For more on Overwatch 2 Season 7, be sure to check out the patch notes and the new game-changing respawn feature.