Could push map Esperança be the next thing Blizzard pulls from Overwatch 2? There's a fair chance after one player discovered a glitch that can cause some very frustrating deadlocks.
Reddit user u/ilax300 posted a demonstration of the glitch using support hero Mercy. It utilises a rock close to the middle of the map, one that appears to have no collision. The player was able to use Mercy's sitting emote, scooting her into the corner of the rock before floating down and vanishing entirely. Not only is that a problem in and of itself, the position is also close enough to the objective for hidden players to contest it, rendering the robot unmoveable and leaving the enemy team pretty damn confused.
I gave the glitch a try myself. Sure enough, I was able to get Mercy to disappear with relative ease, only having a tiny part of her knee poking out. I also tried it with a couple of other smaller heroes who I have sitting emotes for. Lucio's bouncing hair gives him away, while Moira's genuflection leaves her head poking out of the top of the rock.
I roped in features producer Imogen to check Widowmaker and, surprise surprise, she somehow vanishes even easier than Mercy. I don't possess it personally, but Tracer's emote also looks like it would make her completely hidden. A comment on the Reddit thread confirmed that Kiriko's kneel emote does the trick too. There's a chance Genji's sitting emote may squeeze in, though I think his sword may give him away.
Overwatch 2 has faced its fair share of problems since launching in October. Though we've had no maps removed so far, we have seen three heroes temporarily banished. Torbjorn and Bastion were removed a mere week into launch, with both having major ability exploits causing problems in matches. They were eventually brought back, but not long after saw Mei frozen out of the game thanks to a glitch with her ice wall.
Mei was set to return during the mid-season patch on November 15, but that's also been delayed thanks to a "critical issue." Hopefully, Esperança won't be going anywhere. But with Blizzard getting into a habit of pulling things for weeks at a time, there's a chance we'll be waving goodbye to the map for a little while. Some players are calling for ranked modes to disable the use of emotes entirely, especially since this isn't the first time it's happened. Back in Overwatch 1, plonking Junkrat in a bush on Eichenwalde would contest the payload. I assume Blizzard will temporarily nix the emote while it throws a bit of collision onto the offending rock.
