Overwatch devs have rushed to disable text chat in light of a game-breaking bug that was crashing entire lobbies.
Text chat is currently disabled in Overwatch. Devs at Blizzard disabled the communication feature on February 25, 2026 after a game-breaking bug reared its head.
Players who spammed the ‘<’ character in the game’s text chat were able to outright break the game. Enough spam and lobbies would crash, sending every player involved back to the main menu.
Text chat was swiftly turned off to prevent the issue, but there’s currently no word on when it might be restored. Blizzard is yet to comment, but we’ll keep you posted as further details emerge.
Game-breaking Overwatch bug forces devs to disable text chat
There’s no quite telling why that particular character was crashing lobbies, but nonetheless, devs are now investigating and working on a fix. In the meantime, you’ll be unable to communicate with teammates via text, nor will you be able to see important information in the text chat box, like location-based pings.
For some, however, they amusingly view the situation as an improvement. “I feel like this is an upgrade,” one popular Reddit thread argued, pleading with Blizzard to make the change permanent.
Of course, you can simply turn text chat off on your own version of the game if you so choose; that option has been present for a number of years now.
This is the first game-breaking bug we’ve seen since Blizzard ditched the ‘2’ and reverted back to Overwatch, to much success. The hero shooter has seen a renaissance of sorts, with tens of thousands of players flooding back to check out Season 1 of 2026.
With five new heroes to master, and a raft of other changes under the hood, it’s been the most-played version of Overwatch in more than three years.
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