Mei put on ice in Overwatch 2 as Blizzard disables hero to fix bug

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This is Overwatch 2's third hero to be disabled in a month

Overwatch Mei
(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Mei is currently on ice in Overwatch 2 as she's been brought into the workshop by Blizzard due to an interaction that allowed heroes to reach "unintended locations".

Blizzard took to Twitter to announce that Mei has been removed from Overwatch 2 and won’t be back until November 15. The crux of the issue seems to be an interaction between Mei and Kiriko, as Mei can Ice Wall herself up into map geometry, and then Kiriko can teleport to her. While Mei will return to normal once the wall goes down, Kiriko can find herself inside the map and cause all sorts of unintended havoc.

Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller added to the tweet announcing her removal, saying: “This issue was reproducible in multiple locations and could be used to get behind map geo. Working hard to get it resolved soon.”

This now marks the third character to be disabled by the Blizzard team since launch. Bastion was outright taken out of the game due to a terrifying bug that allowed him to carpet bomb entire maps, whereas Torbjorn - while not disabled in Quick Play - was unavailable in Competitive due to being able to use an ability twice without a cooldown.

Mei’s removal now means that, within a month, Overwatch 2 has disabled more heroes from its roster than ever had been in Overwatch 1. Overwatch 2’s launch has been mired by other issues such as massive server and login problems throughout the game’s first week. 

Despite all that, Overwatch 2’s launch seems to be a success, raking in over 25 million players and the game reaching the second most viewed game on Twitch for October according to Sullygnome. That being the case, there are clearly still issues to iron out. Here’s hoping that the game is heading toward a more stable state once Mei returns.

Head over to our Overwatch 2 characters and roles guide for a lowdown of all the basics you need to get started. 

Patrick Dane
Freelance writer

Patrick Dane is the former Guides Editor at TechRadar. He is now a freelance games journalist writing for sites and publications such as GamesRadar, Metro, IGN, Eurogamer, PC Gamer, and the International Business Times, among others. He was also once the Managing Editor for Bleeding Cool.