Overwatch bugs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but a new one that has just been discovered may be the most catastrophic of all as it prevents players from ever being able to respawn and play the game.
In Overwatch, spawns are generally considered to be a safe spot where heroes are invulnerable to damage from the outside. This is designed to make spawn camping doable in theory, but impossible to kill players the moment they respawn.
That is, until this bug showed up and changed everything. As showcased by Overwatch streamer Gale_Adelade, by activating McCree’s Deadeye ultimate and firing right as an enemy player respawned, he’s able to kill them just as they appeared.
As you can see, the rest of the enemy team with the exception of the enemy Reinhardt went back into the spawn where they’d be safe from the cowboy’s attack, but the other McCree died just as he rejoined.
“My screen was legit black! What the f***? I can’t spawn!” the enemy player wrote in the chat.
When Gale pressed tab to see the enemy’s respawn counter he noticed that it was in an infinite loop for the other player.
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Basically, this turned the match into a 6v5 for the remainder of its duration. Once the game ended, Gale loaded up the replay viewer to see exactly what happened.
From the enemy’s perspective, the frame he respawned he was automatically killed by Deadeye and it seems as if the spawn’s invincibility was unable to activate.
“I don’t get it!” Gale laughed. “It was the frame he respawned? Oh my God. He actually couldn’t respawn.”
It’s unclear what other abilities could potentially have the exact same result, but considering how McCree’s Deadeye works as a hitscan ultimate, it makes sense that it would kill a player so quickly.
Nonetheless, while this bug may be a tough one to replicate, it could have serious repercussions, especially if it ever happens in a pro match. Hopefully, Blizzard can look into it and release a fix in an upcoming patch.