Overwatch’s next major patch will require you to reinstall the game

Blizzard has made some slightly peculiar announcements recently – the next major Overwatch patch is going to require a full reinstall of the game. That’s unusual to say the least – a Blizzard representative made the following post:

We wanted to get ahead of this early and let you all know what to expect with our next big patch. We don’t currently have a release date/time with this, but will update this thread once we do. The next major patch will have some pretty fundamental changes to the game client. The number of back-end changes we’re putting in is substantial enough that we can’t just patch over the current content efficiently. As a result, when the next patch comes out, the client will fully reinstall itself to handle these changes. We know that this isn’t ideal for people on metered connections, so hopefully this announcement helps you prepare for this coming update. Thanks for your patience with this matter, and we’ll see you all in game!

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As the post states, it’s not yet known exactly when the next update will come out – nor do we indeed know what will be in it. The obvious answer would, of course, be the new hero. Number 29 in the Overwatch line-up, bad girl Ashe is already playable in test servers. Fans had some mixed reactions when it came to her – while her weapons and especially her ulti-summon B.O.B. were immensely popular, some fans wanted a more ‘diverse’ character than a white cowgirl.

Either way though, a new hero addition would certainly be a good explanation for this unusual move. Unlike previous new heroes, Ashe won’t come with a new map – though Blizzard has confirmed that they are working on half a dozen new heroes, the company hasn’t said much on their maps.

There also isn’t really much of an explanation for why a reinstall will be needed – the post mentions ‘fundamental changes to the game client’ whatever that means. Either way though, the game is close to 30GB at present plus whatever the patch will add to it, so if you don’t have an unlimited connection or data caps, you might want to plan ahead for the next update.

It’s likely more details such as date and content will be revealed soon, so stand by for more info if this affects you – that includes if you have plans to go an Overwatch binge in the next couple of days – it’ll take a fair bit of time to download and reinstall the entire game.

Hopefully Blizzard’s new update will be worth the trouble of reinstalling the game – it would certainly be a shame if these so-called ‘fundamental’ changes ended up being minimal! At BlizzCon, a few new social features were announced with no release date, so there is a small chance that we will see new content like that along with Ashe – unfortunately, at the moment the only thing we know for sure is that a reinstall will be needed.

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