Blizzard has now indicated that a large proportion of former Overwatch players would not need to enable SMS Protect in Overwatch 2. Blizzard has stated that any current Overwatch player with a Battle.net account will no longer be required to provide a phone number. According to Blizzard, this means that everyone who played Overwatch before June 9 will no longer need to activate SMS Protect to access Overwatch 2 services, with the change taking effect on Friday, October 7.
The game’s implementation of SMS Protect was a huge issue for Overwatch 2, since not only did many players not meet its requirements, but it also didn’t appear to operate in certain cases, denying players entry to a game they had hoped to play. The drawback is that new accounts will still be required to use SMS Protect in its present configuration, which may deter some gamers from joining the fray.
