Former Overwatch 2 dev explains the jank: "The script looks like every subway map in the world layered over each other"

04.03.2024 - 15:05 / gamesradar.com / Hirun Cryer

One former Overwatch 2 developer has explained how wild the game's scripting situations can get, and how it turns into visual and gameplay bugs.

Yesterday, an Overwatch 2-focused Twitter account posted a video of a Roadhog player sending an enemy through walls and into another map area entirely, simply by using the grappling hook ability. "How does this even happen at a coding level?" the Twitter account asked, without the slightest bit of knowledge as to Overwatch 2's "coding level."

Thankfully, former writer Justin Groot was on hand to provide some much-needed perspective. In the tweet below, the writer recalls how the script for Roadhog's chain hook ability looked like "every subway map in the world layered on top of itself," which sounds like nightmare fuel from a developer's perspective.

you should see the chain hook script bro. it looks like every subway map in the world layered on top of itself. it is legendary . a butterfly flaps its wings in that script and you get this scenario 2,000 visual scripting nodes away https://t.co/CXewSXp8isMarch 3, 2024

Groot says it's effectively a butterfly scenario: A wild number of scripts can affect and impact the "chain hook script" in various unimaginable ways, all from the smallest of scripts outside the chain hook script itself. I can imagine Overwatch 2's developers at Blizzard effectively trying to push the tide back into the ocean with a broom when it came to battling these bugs. 

Getting Roadhog's chain hook to operate flawlessly must have been a nightmare. What happens if another player moves into the path of the chain as it's pulling a foe in? What happens if terrain objects like a bush or bench get in the way? Now multiply these questions for every hero and every terrain object in Overwatch 2, and you can imagine the mountain facing Blizzard's developers.

Still, this is all a pretty frank look at what goes into just one hero's abilities in Overwatch 2 behind the scenes. "Chain Hook and Ping were my favorite scripts to look at. The greatest spaghetti highways man could ever dream of creating," another former Blizzard developer chimed in underneath Groot's original tweet. I'd pay good money just to see these scripts. 

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