Unlike most first-person shooters, Overwatch is not opposed to allowing some heroes to fly. Pharah rockets up and bonks her head on the sky’s ceiling. Sigma soars above the battlefield on an invisible cloud of psychic energy during his ult. Zenyatta hovers and should never be allowed to walk. Real flight for everyone, though, is a recipe for chaos. And yet, for about a day, it has been possible.
Yesterday, players discovered a glitch involving Mei’s ice wall ability and the ramp leading out of the starting area on many maps. If Mei deploys an ice wall on the ramp, players can climb on top of it and wait for it to break. When this occurs, characters’ bodies contort to one side—part human/robot/ape, part stop sign recently hit by a car—and just sort of stay that way indefinitely. In addition to looking very funny, this grants heroes the ability to fly around in a Pharah-like fashion.
Why? Who knows. But there is something distinctly terrifying about the sight of a Reinhardt—full of blood, thunder, and earthshatter ults—taking to the skies.
Cursed Mei bug
— Stylosa (@Stylosa) December 12, 2019
I’m tilted… pic.twitter.com/GXMpwhg3rx
— timthetatman (@timthetatman) December 12, 2019
Players, meanwhile, were gripped by a cold shiver as they discussed the possibilities. “McCree using Deadeye with this… dear lord,” said one on Reddit.
Fortunately, Blizzard is going to bring high-flying heroes back down to earth soon. After promising a fix on Reddit yesterday, Blizzard lead software engineer Bill Warnecke said about an hour ago that “the fix is rolling out now and should be complete over the next couple hours.”
He also cautioned people about abusing bugs, even when they’re as silly as this one. “Over the lifetime of a live game bugs happen, and sometimes like with this case, they’re memorable and fun,” he wrote. “A TimTheTatman clip from yesterday is a great example of that. If you exploit a bug like this one, especially repeatedly, there could be penalties applied to your account.”
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