Overwatch 2: Blizzard cancels promised PvE sequel

Since 2019, fans have been eagerly awaiting the Overwatch campaign. The shooter was released last fall, but Overwatch 2 didn’t come with the promised PvE content, only the PvP part. During Dave’s last conversation, it was now confirmed that this will likely stay that way forever.

The PvE mode will be cut significantly

Overwatch 2 was revealed at Blizzcon 2019. With matching Cinema advertisement And dated gameplay trailer At that time, fans often like the PvE campaign (player vs environment) announced.

In October 2022, the successor to the first-person shooter is coming to PC and consoles. Overwatch 1 has been completely replaced and the much-heralded co-op PvE segment with long-term progression, hero quests, and a skill tree is still a spur of the moment for players. These were only postponed with a later campaign deployment.

Until now, Overwatch fans continued to believe that the development team was working behind the scenes on a PvE game, but in a recent dev chat, it emerged that Aaron Keller, current Overwatch game director, and his team are pursuing other plans: the campaign has been deleted entirely. Executive Producer Jared News commented in the developer chat as follows:

“The PvE experience has not made the progress we had hoped. […] And so we’re left with another tough choice: do we keep going all out in PvP in hopes that we can get there at some point in the future or do we stick to this set of values ​​that we agree on and focus on in the live game and focus on serving you all?

With everything we’ve learned about what it takes to run this game at the level it deserves, we obviously can’t achieve that original vision for PvE that was shown in 2019. What this means is that we won’t be introducing a custom hero mode with talent trees, that progression Long term in strength. Those things are not in our plans anymore and we know this will be frustrating for a lot of you which is why we wanted to bring it up before we talk about the roadmap.”

Fans are angry and disappointed

under Twitter roadmapin the comments section at Dev Chat Videos as well as in reddit Fans express their disappointment. As in the past, players are criticizing that the game involving the move to Overwatch 2 only received a Battlepass remonitization. The lack of updates has often been criticized. The way there is new content in Overwatch 2 now, fans wanted it in Overwatch 1 back then. Since the PvE part, which is valued equally for the PvP aspect, is now history, the game will have nothing to do with the point of view of those who want it behind.

Still smaller PvE events and remonitization

However, the plans for Overwatch 2 are still there even without a campaign. The team, outlined in a “roadmap,” provides a specific plan for future updates. Starting with Season 6, PvE content will also be on the agenda, though not to the extent the developers originally intended with the campaign. Speaking of updates: Blizzard is still busy introducing features that were included in the first part but are no longer in Overwatch 2. This is how the on-fire system should return to the game in Season 5.