Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Earlier this week, Blizzard issued a roadmap for Overwatch 2's future. One item that fans were looking for was an update on the game's promised PvE component, which was delayed indefinitely in favor of getting PvP up and running. After a long struggle, Blizzard's Team 4 has ultimately decided that the PvE, as it was marketed, cannot move forward. On Friday, Overwatch 2 Game Director Aaron Keller personally issued a statement explaining why.
Keller's explanation notes that when Overwatch 2 was first revealed, there was a vision for Story Missions containing the Overwatch 2 characters as they're seen in the PvP game and a separate Hero Missions mode that goes in an entirely different direction. Hero Mode would have featured a single-player component with replayable missions, talent trees, and a deeper sense of character progression. However, unlike Call of Duty, which has multiple developer studios focusing on specific aspects of every game, Blizzard's Team 4 was flying solo and inevitably had to choose to either have a live PvP game that would be supported for years to come with frequent updates, balance changes, and regular events or a robust PvE mode that would feature a deep sense of character progression and a story that spanned dozens of hours. It was soon evident to Keller that the team couldn't have it both ways.
Here's his explanation from the Overwatch website:
We had an exciting but gargantuan vision and we were continuously pulling resources away from the live game in an attempt to realize it. I can't help but look back on our original ambitions for Overwatch and feel like we used the slogan of "crawl, walk, run" to continue to march forward with a strategy that just wasn't working.
We had announced something audacious. Our players had high expectations for it, but we no longer felt like we could deliver it. We needed to make an incredibly difficult decision, one we knew would disappoint our players, the team, and everyone looking forward to Hero Missions. The Overwatch team understands this deeply - this represented years of work and emotional investment. They are wonderful, incredibly talented people and truly have a passion for our game and the work that they do.
Lastly, people have wondered why this announcement came at this time. After Overwatch 2 had launched, we started refining our plans for future seasons. As those plans grew, we tried to find ways to make all of our ambitions fit together in a plan that we believed in.
We couldn't. And we also knew that we couldn't go back to pulling people away from the live game in service of that original vision again. So, we made the difficult decision to cut Hero Missions and started planning for the future.
However, contrary to the impression that the roadmap left, Keller notes that PvE isn't scratched entirely. Overwatch 2's narrative will continue to play out through co-op Story Missions, which will debut at the start of Season 6. These will go farther than the PvE event missions from the first Overwatch by featuring cinematics and cutscenes that further flesh out the game's story.
Keller is promising more information on Overwatch 2's refined PvE element in the weeks to come. We'll continue to watch and see what new form PvE takes, so keep it on Shacknews for any further updates.