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How to Fix Overwatch 2 Crashing or Freezing

Is Overwatch 2 crashing or freezing on your PC, PS4, PS5, or Xbox?

The main issue is that the game crashes with a black screen while playing on systems with Inter Core i3 or dual-core CPUs.

The Overwatch client will freeze (the app will hang or not respond) and you might need to restart your PC.

Overwatch 2 was released as a free-to-play game and instantly shot up to the top charts.

Since its release, the game has had multiple known issues.

Some of the known issues are server disconnection, cosmetics, items, currency not showing up, and others.

In this guide, you’ll learn why is Overwatch 2 crashing or freezing on your PC or console and how to fix it.

Why is Overwatch 2 crashing?

Overwatch 2 is crashing either because your graphics card is outdated or your PC does not meet the minimum requirements needed to run the game.

It can also be due to insufficient RAM (if a lot of other background processes are running) which overloads your PC.

Blizzard is working on a server update to reduce players from being disconnected in-game which will be released in the upcoming week(s).

Many players are complaining about the crashing/freezing issue on the Blizzard forum.

“Yeah, I am experiencing crashes within minutes of playing the game, it doesn’t matter if I’m in the practice range or the menu”.

“Same here, my game will instantly crash after a minute or so. It didn’t happen in the beta for me, and it didn’t happen during my first game today when the game launched. Ever since I restarted it, it has been instantly closing without any errors.”

“Thank god, I thought that I was the only one having this problem. The game is literally unplayable, it crashes after ~3 matches, and it’s as if waiting 10 minutes to play the game is not enough”.

How to fix Overwatch 2 crashing or freezing

To fix Overwatch 2 crashing or freezing, you need to update your graphics card, close all of your tabs, and scan and repair the game.

You can also try to lower your video settings (disable Dynamic Render Scale) and reduce your graphic settings.

Otherwise, you need to wait for Blizzard to fix the server issues or play the game when it’s less crowded.

If all else fails, you can open a web ticket here: https://us.battle.net/support/en/help/product/overwatch.

Fix 1: Update your graphics card

Overwatch 2 crashing
  1. For Nvidia: Go to https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/geforce-experience/download/ > Download Now > open the app > sign up or log in > Drivers > Download.
  2. For AMD: Go to https://www.amd.com/en/support > Download > open the app > follow the on-screen instructions to update your GPU.

Source: Blizzard Support Article ID: 310365.

Fix 2: Close all of your tabs

  • If you have Chrome or Edge running in your background, you need to close all of your tabs.
  • Closing your tabs will decrease your CPU and memory (RAM) usage, which can prevent the game from crashing/freezing.

Source: Blizzard Support Article ID: 310365

Fix 3: Scan and repair

  1. Launch Battle.net and select “Overwatch 2”.
  2. Click on the gear icon next to the play button.
  3. Select “Scan and repair”.
  4. Select “Begin scan”.
  5. Launch Overwatch 2.

Source: Blizzard Support Article ID: 310365.

Fix 4: Lower your video settings

  • Dynamic Render Scale: Off
  • Limit FPS to 30 
  • Vsync: Off
  • Triple buffering: Off
  • Reduce buffering: On
  • Nvidia Reflex: Enabled

Source: Overwatch Technical Support via the Blizzard forums.

Fix 5: Lower your graphics settings

Overwatch 2 freezing
  • Graphics quality: Low
  • Texture quality: Low
  • Texture filtering quality: Low – 1x
  • Local fog detail: Low
  • Dynamic reflections: Off
  • Shadow detail: Off
  • Model detail: Low
  • Effects detail: Low
  • Lighting quality: Low
  • Antialias quality: Low – FXAA
  • Refraction Quality: Low
  • Screenshot quality: 1x Resolution
  • Ambient occlusion: Off
  • Local reflections: Off
  • Damage FX: Default

Source: Overwatch Technical Support via the Blizzard forums.

Further reading

How to Fix “Sorry, we were unable to log you in” in Overwatch 2

How to Fix Missing Cosmetics and Skins in Overwatch 2

How to Fix “Player is in a different version of Overwatch” in Overwatch 2

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