Overwatch is one of the most popular multiplayer games on the market right now, with over 40 million players as of May 2018 and growing. Its hero-based gameplay is one of the best out there, giving Blizzard Entertainment a big influence in the genre. Overwatch’s latest hero, Ashe, makes her public debut soon.
Their influence and player count aren’t the only things that are big, however, as Blizzard took to their forums to explain why players will need to fully reinstall the entire game just to download and install the next major patch, which we assume will include Ashe, the new playable hero.
According to Blizzard Customer Support Member Drakuloth, “[t]he number of back-end changes we’re putting in is substantial enough that we can’t just patch over the current content efficiently[,]” therefore meaning that players will instead have to reinstall the game that would then include the patch rather than download the patch on top of their existing files.
That makes sense, right? No?
Well, in an email sent to DualShockers, Blizzard clarified on some elements of the patch that may be contributing to its large download size. The “remaster impacts players on both PC and console”, so no one will escape their fate. Luckily for PC players, if you have the current PTR client installed, then your “redownload will be significantly smaller”.
As for why the remaster patches happen, Blizzard told us that improvements to loading times, optimization for “memory constrained systems”, reducing storage space on drive “(PS4)”, bug fixes across “many maps” and “data format changes to support future content” are included.
They also told us to note that “PC users with system specifications that are closer to min spec will see more improvements than systems above the recommended specifications” and that “map bug fixes and format changes for future content are for everyone”.
We asked Blizzard if Ashe was included in this patch, and they did not confirm nor deny.
We’ll update you if anything changes regarding this story.
