Overwatch players discover sneaky Sombra Capture the Flag exploit

Overwatch players have discovered an exploit in Capture the Flag that allows hacker hero Sombra to use her teleport ability to break the arcade game mode.

Capture the Flag was first introduced to Overwatch in 2017, and was a mode that Blizzard Entertainment had struggled to make work for years according to director Jeff Kaplan in a developer update vlog posted in January of that year.

The arcade game overcame its hurdles and proves popular now though, and one player on Reddit has discovered an exploit using Sombra’s teleport ability in the crazy mode.

The Arcade mode sees players trying to capture the flag from their opponents team, and bring it back to their own base.

Reddit user ‘ZeMedicIsHere‘ uploaded a video from a replay of their match on the Overwatch subreddit, which shows the opponent Sombra using her teleport ability’s animation to quickly grab the flag, and transport it back to her side.

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The player is invisible, before they run into the middle of the enemy flag, and right as they grab it they immediately teleport which carries both the Sombra and the object back to their base, awarding the opponent with an easy score.

Usually Sombra is supposed to drop the flag when she transports, but it seems that the player was able to carry the flag with him. 

Reddit user ‘Shortypants69’ commented, saying, “It looks like the presses recall so fast the animation to drop the flag got carried with them.”

The Reddit user believed that the flag was technically dropping, but the Sombra animation was so quick that it was carried to the other side before hitting the ground.

While it’s unclear if this is an actual glitch, another comment theorized that if “you start dropping the flag in the same tick as you recall, the animation plays out and finishes” in your new location.

Another comment on Overwatch subreddit tried to explain how the exploit actually might work.

It remains to be seen if this is an exploit that can be replicated, but several users on the Overwatch subreddit claimed that they had experienced similar situations when playing against Sombra.

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If it is in fact something that can be done, Blizzard will be sure to patch it out quickly to stop sneaky players from breaking the game mode.