People mysteriously losing Overwatch progress on PS4
UPDATE: Appears to be fixed!
UPDATE 21ST JULY: Lost PS4 Overwatch progress appears to have been restored. The reader who originally contacted us confirmed as much, telling me all progress as well as coins and loot box content had been restored. And it's a similar story for people in the Overwatch forum thread, who say their rewards have been returned.
There is an official Blizzard post confirming the fix for the "small number" of accounts affected. "As of today, we've completed a restoration of credits, levels, and competitive points on the accounts we could see were impacted," wrote community manager Lylirra.
But your skill rating can't be restored in the same way.
"Skill Ratings are a little more difficult and can't be repaired in the same manner," Lylirra added. "Unlike levels or currency, your Skill Rating is a dynamic piece of data. As you play, the rating is continuously updated, and the nature of this bug makes it difficult to establish the exact point of failure. So, rather than risking an incorrectly restored Skill Rating, the matchmaking system will use the player data that's been collected since the failure to calibrate your new rating. Anyone who has not played since their account was affected will simply need to replay their placement matches. This will give our matchmaking system the information it needs to pair you with similarly skilled players."
Lylirra said Blizzard can't guarantee that everything has been restored but it has done everything it can, and is improving its restoration tools for the future.
"We sincerely apologise for any frustration this issue may have caused in the meantime, and thank you so much for your patience as we worked to resolve it."
ORIGINAL STORY 20TH JULY: Have you logged into Overwatch on PS4 to discover you're a lower level than when you logged out? And that you've lost in-game credits and even skill rating?
You weren't drunk; it's a genuine problem. Eurogamer was contacted by a reader suffering from the same bug, and there are many others complaining of similar on the Overwatch forum.
The reader who wrote in said: "I had spent around 23 hours in-game, acquired approx 900 coins, plus various items from loot boxes, and got to around level 34 / 35. However, when I logged in on Sunday I had been kicked back to level 22, back down to 450 coins and lost lots of other gear.
"Blizzard seems content offering little to no information on what the issue is (other than acknowledging there is one) and what their intentions are.
"In the meantime, we players don't know if we should play on, as we fear any progress made between now and Blizzard resolving the issue (if indeed they do) will eradicate any progress made during that time or prevent the progress already lost being re-instated."
As mentioned, Blizzard has acknowledged the issue:
"Hello all, just wanted to let you all know we are still investigating this. I'll try to post back when I get an update on this. Thank you all for your patience," wrote blue poster Eloemaz.
But that was 12 days ago. The thread has been bumped numerous times since but with no Blizzard response.
A commenter in the thread said they spoke to Blizzard's customer support team and was told Blizzard and Sony were working on a fix but "experiencing problems".
IGN was separately told by Blizzard customer support that there was "sadly" no ETA for a fix.
"I can confirm that we are having multiple reports regarding this issue and our Development Team and Quality Assurance Department are already working on a solution with Sony which will be available as soon as possible. Sadly, as of right now, there's no actual ETA on when it will be resolved."
Overwatch is currently prepping for the arrival new hero Ana, along with a raft of needed character adjustments. There's no hard and fast date for the patch but PC Battle.net launchers have been background installing the data ahead of patch day, which suggests it could be near. OW has had a tendency to update on a Tuesday since launch so it could even be today.