by Overwatch 2 is now live, and some diving players will be surprised to learn that they need to link a phone number to their Battle.net account in order to play. This new requirement wasn’t fully explained when it was first announced, but more recently, Blizzard has provided more information about why the new SMS protection requirement was deemed necessary: cheaters.
All Overwatch 2 players, even those who purchased the original Overwatch and those playing on consoles, will need to link a phone number to their Battle.net account in order to play. The same phone number cannot be used for multiple accounts and Blizzard does not accept prepaid and VOIP numbers.