Overwatch 2 Season 4 Ranking Glitch Sparks Gamer Outrage And A Blizzard Investigation

Overwatch 2 Season 4 introduced a new ranking system to the game — on top of the controversial hero Lifeweaver — that would no longer cause seasonal rank resets and rank decay. However, due to miscommunication between the community and the developers, players are seeing rank changes happening in Season 4 and contributing it to rank decay, when in fact it's not related to rank decay. On top of this, there’s also a Season 3 bug that is giving out the wrong rewards to Season 3 competitive players.

Before we dive in, it's worth mentioning how this new system works. Overwatch 2’s ranking system previously decayed players' ranks or reset them completely at the end of each season in an effort to rejuvenate the game’s competitive mode and give players a way to keep on grinding. However, it's no secret that Overwatch 2 players dislike this game mechanic and have been wanting rank resets to disappear entirely. The developers have taken notice of this and officially confirmed rank resets would be disappearing in a post published in late January, starting with Season 4.

The new ranking system (now in effect with Season 4) does exactly what the developers intended and will no longer reset players from here on out. That doesn't mean players would be immune to losing ranks, though. The new ranking system also transitions the ranking mode from something called STD or skill tier division to the game’s hidden matchmaking system or MMR. Apparently, as a result of this, players could experience a rank change as the system changes over to MMR. This is also reflected in Overwatch 2, saying everyone’s skill tier and division have been adjusted to match the current estimate of your skill.

However, not everyone has understood the new changes, sparking frustration on various social media platforms and the Blizzard forums. A number of Overwatch players have reported their accounts have changed rank starting in Season 4, and think it's related to rank decay.

To make matters worse, a Season 3-related bug is affecting final ranks in Season 3. It is causing some players to start off with lower ranks in Season 4 than what they began with. This is a bug Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller confirmed on Twitter, that is not only affecting current ranks but is also affecting rewards from playing in Season 3’s competitive mode. Thankfully Keller reports that the bug has been identified and a fix is being rolled out this month.

We’ve been working to solve an issue for some players who received a lower final rank in Season 3 than they should have. We’ve identified a fix and plan to include it in the next patch later this month. Impacted players should receive their correct Season 3 ranking (1/2)

— Aaron Keller (@aaronkellerOW) April 13, 2023

So, if you are an Overwatch 2 player, don’t worry if you see your rank change. It is normal and related to the rank system transitioning over to MMR, and is not related to a bug or rank decay. Ranked Season 3 rewards will also be handed out correctly to affected players later this month on top of bonus rewards as compensation.