What is Widematch in Overwatch 2?

Widematch in Overwatch 2 was introduced following the advent of Season 10: Venture Forth. It lets other players queue with anyone way below or above their rank range, allowing them to receive a lower point loss or gain regardless of their performance in-game. Moreover, players don’t have a restriction on the group size (except for a 4-stack) in Widematch, and they’ll get only queued with other players queuing for Widematch in Overwatch 2.

Apart from the meta and other quality-of-life changes, the developers have opened a door for all players to queue with any of their friends with this new reworked Group restriction.

This article will explain certain things about the Widematch in Overwatch 2.

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Widematch in Overwatch 2 explained

After the introduction of Overwatch 2 Season 10 on live servers, Blizzard's developers have implemented two new systems. One includes Widematch in Overwatch 2 consisting of Wide groups and the other contains narrow groups, mostly including players within a similar or small rank range.

For example, if Silver ranked Tank queues with a Diamond Support, the brand-new Widematch system will try to provide an opponent with almost similar rank traits. Hence, players will have a more transparent matchmaking system on their accounts. However, the only drawback is the Widematches will take longer queues than usual.

Moreover, the players falling under this category will also match up against other Widematch queuers. However, players are only eligible for a Widematch queue in a stack of two, three, or five. Meanwhile, the developers are yet to introduce the system for four stacks.

With the new implementation of Widematch in Overwatch 2, the developers have focused more on avoiding a massive surge in boosting issues. The wider the groups will be, the less they’ll get reward from the match. So, if a Silver player queues with a Grandmaster or a Champion-ranked player, both parties can expect a bare minimum growth in their rank points.

However, this wasn’t the case earlier. Due to the rank restriction in earlier seasons, players couldn't queue with their friends or other players. Even if they did, they were restricted to playing between certain roles to balance the overall matchmaking system. Despite the rank restrictions being live in-game, several players complained many times about the broken SBMM system of Overwatch.

Currently, the transparent system will enable all players to enjoy the game with their friends regardless of rank. However, the developers are still a bit worried about smurfing.

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To learn more news and updates about Overwatch 2, click on these articles:

• Season 10 patch notes
• Mirrorwatch mode explored
• “Players already changing groups” bug possible fixes
• The broken Autoban system