Mei's return to Overwatch 2 delayed by 'critical issue' with patch

Mei and Snowball in Overwatch — (Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Update: The Overwatch 2 patch, which will restore Mei as a playable character, is now scheduled to come out on Thursday, November 17, at 11 am PT, according to a Blizzard tweet.

Original story: Overwatch 2 can't keep its heroes in one place for longer than a week.

Mei, the latest hero to be removed for bug fixing, isn't returning to Overwatch 2 quite yet, according to an update from Blizzard on its forums. The game's mid-season patch has been delayed due to an unspecified "critical issue," the developer says. It wasn't stated whether this issue has to do with Mei herself, or something larger within Overwatch 2.

It's not clear how long the delay will be; Blizzard says it's working on releasing it "as soon as possible," and to watch the forums and the Overwatch Twitter account for updates.

Mei was removed on October 31 due to a bug with her Ice Wall ability. Players found that Meis can wedge themselves into corners with it and then use a teleporting character like Kiriko to clip into the map geometry. From there, the Kiriko could swap to a hero like Symmetra and safely attack players from underneath the map. Clever, but not very nice.

Before Mei, Blizzard removed Bastion for two weeks while they fixed an exploit with his ultimate ability. If Mei doesn't return later today, she will have been out of the game longer than the robot.

The rest of the patch includes balance changes to over-performing heroes, including Genji, D.Va, Zarya, Sombra, and Kiriko. Overwatch League viewers who caught the grand finals already saw the patch in action: Zarya's unstoppable reign is over, Genji has been swapped out for Reaper, and Sombra isn't played at all. Sojourn, the new railgun-toting hero who, by most people's estimation, is absurdly powerful at the moment, won't be getting any changes. That is, unless something changes from the patch notes Blizzard released last month.

If you log into the store right now there's a new, colorful Mei skin on the shop for 1,000 Overwatch Coins. The Retro Star skin is wrapped in pastel pink, gives Mei turquoise hair, and has a shooting star that changes colors. If only there was a hero in the game that could use it.

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Tyler has covered videogames and PC hardware for 15 years. He regularly spends time playing and reporting on games like Diablo 4, Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, and Final Fantasy 14. While his specialty is in action RPGs and MMOs, he's driven to cover all sorts of games whether they're broken, beautiful, or bizarre.