How to fix the “different version of ‘Overwatch'” issue in ‘Overwatch 2’

Overwatch 2 launched last night (October 4), however it’s not been an entirely smooth release. Currently, a message reading “player is in a different version of Overwatch” is making it difficult to play the sequel with pals – here’s how to fix it.

If the option to invite your friends to a group in Overwatch 2 is greyed out and you get a message claiming they’re playing a different version of the game, open up the game’s chat and type “/invite” with their Battle.net ID.

By going through the invite system manually rather than using the game’s interface, it should bypass the error message and allow you to invite your friends to a group.

Beyond that bug, Overwatch 2 is currently struggling with several other problems. Blizzard Entertainment’s known issues page reveals that Overwatch 2 players are experiencing issues with connectivity problems and missing cosmetics, while several of the game’s mnaps have been disabled.

Yesterday, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra acknowledged that Overwatch 2 has been targetted with a “mass” Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

“Unfortunately we are experiencing a mass DDoS attack on our servers,” confirmed Ybarra on Twitter. “Teams are working hard to mitigate/manage. This is causing a lot of drop/connection issues.”

Earlier today (October 5), Overwatch 2 developer Aaron Keller shared an update confirming further issues with DDoS attacks.

“We’re steadily making progress on server issues and stability, as well as working through a second DDoS attacK,” said Keller. “We’re all hands on deck and will continue to work throughout the night. Thank you for your patience – we’ll share more info as it becomes available.”

Though launch day issues are making it difficult to play, the game itself is looking good – our review of Overwatch 2 awarded the sequel four out of five stars, thanks to some smart tweaks that distinguish it from the first Overwatch.

In other gaming news, CD Projekt Red CEO and co-founder Marcin Iwiński is stepping down after 30 years with the company.