Blizzard’s latest located public figure is over 1 million Overwatch 2 accounts banned for cheating since the game launched. That is a cumulative enforcement total—not a count of unique people currently cheating, or a measure of how often you will encounter a cheater.
What Blizzard’s one-million figure counts
In its August 29, 2025 Defense Matrix: Peripheral Vision update, Blizzard said more than 1 million accounts had been banned for cheating since Overwatch 2 launched. The company specified that the total includes accounts used for aimbots, wallhacks and other cheats, as well as accounts belonging to players who grouped with known cheaters.
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That scope matters: Blizzard describes accounts banned, not one million distinct people caught cheating directly. The figure accumulates actions over time, and the inclusion of grouping-related cases means it is broader than a direct-cheat-user count.
Does that mean one in a certain number of players cheats?
No. Blizzard did not provide a player-population denominator alongside the milestone, nor a current count of active cheaters. Without those figures—and a consistent definition of who counts as a cheater—you cannot use the ban total to calculate a reliable percentage or estimate the odds of meeting a cheater in a match.
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It also does not reveal how many banned accounts belonged to people who returned on another account, how many players were active at the same time, or how enforcement was distributed across modes and regions. The public total establishes the scale of Blizzard’s cumulative actions, not the present-day prevalence of cheating.
How earlier Blizzard figures compare
Blizzard has published smaller milestones over the years, but they describe different points in time and sometimes different kinds of enforcement. They should not be added together or treated as current rates.
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| Blizzard update | Reported figure | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Defense Matrix – Removing Cheaters from Overwatch 2, July 9, 2024 | Over 500,000 accounts found cheating; over 40,000 accounts suspended or banned | The first figure concerns accounts found cheating; the second concerns accounts actioned for intentionally grouping with cheating accounts. |
| Defense Matrix – Driving Positivity in Overwatch, May 30, 2023 | Over 100,000 accounts penalized; ban waves often removed up to 5,000 accounts every week | A historical enforcement report. The weekly figure is not a current ban rate. |
| Defense Matrix Update: Streaming Protection Features and New Actions for Cheating, February 7, 2023 | Over 50,000 accounts actioned | An earlier cumulative milestone for cheating since launch; the update also discussed action against people knowingly grouping with cheaters. |
What about console players using mouse and keyboard?
Blizzard also treats using unapproved peripherals to bypass the console controller pool as cheating. Its August 29, 2025 update reported more than 23,000 actions against players using unapproved peripherals and people grouping with them since deployment. That is a separate, specific enforcement figure—not an estimate of all cheaters or a number to add to the one-million total.
Blizzard says console players using a mouse and keyboard are placed in a separate input pool. The policy and action count are described in the same Peripheral Vision update.
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So, how many cheaters are in OW2?
The most accurate public answer is: Blizzard has banned more than 1 million accounts for cheating-related reasons cumulatively since Overwatch 2 launched, but it has not published a reliable count or percentage of active cheaters. The number of people cheating now—or the chance of encountering one in a particular match—cannot be determined from the public figures above.
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