The next big Overwatch patch forces a full reinstall

The next major Overwatch patch will force a full reinstallation of the game, Blizzard has warned.

In a post on the Blizzard forums, the company said the upcoming update for the multiplayer shooter will make fundamental changes to the game client across PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

"The number of back-end changes we're putting in is substantial enough that we can't just patch over the current content efficiently," Blizzard explained.

"As a result, when the next patch comes out, the client will fully reinstall itself to handle these changes."

Blizzard told Kotaku it considers this update a "remaster" patch that improves load times and reduces the harddrive imprint of the PS4 version, among other things.

Overwatch, which came out in May 2016, is on the smaller size relative to other big shooters these days (you need around 30GB of harddrive space for installation), but it's nice to hear Blizzard let players know a big download is coming.

"We know that this isn't ideal for people on metered connections, so hopefully this announcement helps you prepare for this coming update," Blizzard said.

There's no release date for the patch yet.