Overwatch 2's Hanzo was temporarily removed for turning his bow into a machine gun
A new control setting didn't work as intended.
Update: Hanzo has returned!
Original story: Say goodbye to Hanzo, Overwatch 2's grumpy bowman and the star of the latest season's battle pass. A bug that allowed him to shoot his bow like an assault rifle has prompted Blizzard to temporarily remove him from the game.
"Hanzo is disabled in all modes for the time being due to a bug with his toggle primary fire control option," lead hero designer Alec Dawson wrote on Twitter (X). "Hoping to have a fix for this out later today and will be re-enabling him then."
Several Overwatch 2 heroes in the latest patch received new alternate (and accessibility-minded) control options that allow you to toggle actions on and off. By default, you have to hold your primary fire button down to draw Hanzo's bow and let go of it to shoot an arrow. With the toggle option, you press the key and press it again to release an arrow. But players quickly found that something was wrong with the setting.
Normally, arrows shot at anything less than a full draw would result in reduced travel distance and damage, which meant you had to give it a second before letting go. But with the new toggle option enabled, you could spam weaker-looking arrows that still dealt Hanzo's full 120 damage at twice his normal firing rate. The extremely lethal sniper hero could theoretically run straight into people and take them out faster than anything else in the game.
Like Mei, Bastion, and Torbjorn before him, Hanzo has been benched from all modes because of the bug. But you'll still see him on the main menu wearing his new customizable Mythic Onryō skin which just launched with season 7 yesterday. I think it would be mathematically impossible to reach the final tier of the battle pass this fast without paying money, but anyone who had plans to show the skin off will have to wait until Hanzo starts behaving again.
Overwatch season 7 is out now with a new Diablo-themed PVE mode and a controversial $40 skin bundle that includes Lilith Moira and Inarius Pharah.