Overwatch 2 maps are falling like flies in the summer heat right now. The Overwatch 2 team has now disabled Antarctic Peninsula, the frosty control map introduced with season three of the multiplayer game in February, meaning it joins push map Paríaso on the sidelines. The culprit appears to be an Overwatch 2 glitch that allows a mischievous player to cause the frame rate of everyone in the lobby to plummet, resulting in a basically unplayable match for all involved.
The glitch in question is actually an old, returning bug from the days of the original Overwatch, where Genji could force-activate his ultimate at the start of a round by repeatedly glitching out of the spawn room during the setup phase. This would, for some reason, cause the FPS of all players to plummet to slideshow-like levels, including his own. It’s bad enough on any map, but it’s particularly noticeable on Overwatch 2’s Paríaso.
Now, the issue has returned – but it appears that the culprit this time is Mercy. She has a similar glitch caused by repeatedly breaking out of spawn, but in her case it causes her to pull out her staff and pistol at the same time. This results in a situation where, while Mercy has her staff out, the frame rate of everyone plummets and their latency and interpolation delay spikes, creating a near-unplayable situation for everyone in the lobby.
That’s frustrating enough if a player is simply looking to be a troll, but perhaps the most dangerous part is that Mercy can switch back to her pistol, temporarily relieving the issue on her end and causing havoc, then return to her staff before other players’ performance recovers.
It appears the glitch is causing similar havoc on Antarctic Peninsula as well, as Overwatch 2 community manager Craig Simpson says in a forum post, “We have disabled the Paríaso and Antarctic Peninsula maps as we investigate an issue with performance when certain heroes are played.”
They add, “We’re sorry for any inconvenience, and we appreciate y’all’s understanding. Our team is working to resolve these issues, and we will provide more information as soon as we have updates.” That means there’s currently no timeframe on when we’ll return to the pair – personally I think I’ll miss Paríaso more, but I had admittedly begun to warm to Antarctic Peninsula during season four.
It was announced during the Xbox Games Showcase that Overwatch 2 will offer benefits to Xbox and PC Game Pass Ultimate subscribers as part of Overwatch 2 Invasion for season 6.
As Overwatch 2 season 5 begins, take a look through the best Overwatch 2 settings to try and keep your FPS and performance as high as possible, and browse our Overwatch 2 tier list to see who the best characters are right now.