It looks like players will have to wait a little longer for Overwatch Season 18, and the Role Queue feature along with it, to fully launch. Developer Blizzard has just announced that it’s delaying the season following a “bug” that appears to have affected matchmaking in the game.
The Overwatch Twitter channel has just followed up a post about its Role Queue feature going live from yesterday with the announcement that “Season 18 has been delayed. The role queue beta season has been extended until season 18 releases.” Developer Bill Warnecke talks about the reason for this in a post on the Overwatch forums: “when Season 18 went live matchmaking values from prior seasons weren’t being respected. We’re extending the Role Queue Beta Season while we work on a fix for this bug.”
Fortunately for players, it looks like this fix should be on its way soon – Warnecke adds that “we expect to be ready for Season 18 early next week.”
As Dot Esports reports, it appears that this bug has affected matchmaking in the game, with some players being put with people of very different ranks in ranked matches, and some have scored lower placements than they might have anticipated.
i'm a gold pic.twitter.com/7peZTYN3o5
— Choihyobin (@Shock_CHB) September 1, 2019
Pro Overwatch player Hyo-bin ‘ChoiHyoBin’ Choi, who plays for USA-based team San Francisco Shock, and Hasan “Crakinlakin” Alfardi, formerly of Wave Check, have posted on Twitter about some unusual matchmaking and ranking results they’ve experienced, for example. Choi reported a gold result, and Alfardi said he was in a queue with bronze players.
For now, it looks like the beta season for the Role Queue feature will continue until the devs are able to get the bug fixed, and Season 18 launched soon.