The group stage winners game between NiP and compLexity has been marred by a recurring bug that causes the game to crash. This forced a map restart on Eichenwalde (map 1) and a number of map restarts on the second map, Hollywood. The game has taken up four hours of the schedule as of writing, with the second map still to be played along with a third if required.

Blizzard developers on the scene are reportedly in contact with their colleagues in North America to solve the issue, and are in active contact with the casters and organisers of the event in an attempt to mitigate the damage to the tournament.

The bug was originally thought to be linked to compLexity’s use of Sombra, as it was the first major use of the hero at DreamHack. In their most recent replay of Hollywood however, the teams reportedly played with Sombra banned in an attempt to isolate the issue; this did not have a noticeable impact and the game crashed yet again.

The working hypothesis from some players and coaches present is that this is a bug with Mei, though this has not been commented on by Blizzard developers publicly. It is not known why the bug has manifest itself in this match so extensively when prior games both at DreamHack Winter and at OGN APEX Season 1 were bug-free.

It has been alleged that DreamHack Winter Championship tournament is not being played on a LAN client, though these claims cannot be verified currently.

An extended break has now been taken as Blizzard attempt to quash the bug, which risks ruining the tournament completely if it is not fixed. It also has ramifications for future events such as the finals of APEX or MSI MGA if the bug cannot be isolated.

According to a team manager present, the tournament organisers have discussed running upcoming games off-stream in order to get back on schedule. As of writing, the tournament is two hours behind even if the current game is resolved immediately.

Surprisingly though, there are still more than 50 spectators present in the crowd watching a timer repetitively tick down to 5 minutes and then bounce back up to 45.