EsportsHeaven
2023-06-19 11:11:40
Following the surprising announcement, former Vice President of Blizzard Entertainment and Game Director of Overwatch, Jeffery Kaplan took the stage to add further details of what Overwatch 2 would bring to the table.
Outside of adding "a ton" of PvE and cooperative content, he referred to the game also having a "complete story experience". He also added that Overwatch 2 would have "Hero Missions" which he described as "highly replayable content" comparable to Diablo 3's Adventure Mode.
This cooperative story experience would also feature complete progression systems tailored for each member of the continuously growing Overwatch cast. This meant individual talent trees and ability augments.
March of 2022 saw Activision Blizzard commit to "decoupling" their PvP and PvE modes for Overwatch 2. This allowed the PvP portion of the game to be released earlier than its story-driven counterpart.
This was a welcome shift in development as fans were left waiting on a game that was quickly becoming stale with all development power being allocated towards the Overwatch 2.
The open betas were a success, the game launched its 33rd hero in Sojourn, and fans could look forward to learning more about their favourite heroes as the PvE portion was still developing.
May of 2023 featured a developer update from Game Director Aaron Keller and Executive Producer Jared Neuss.
While they did outline the upcoming content cycle arriving with Season 5 of Overwatch 2, what took centre stage was the former cancellation of their vision for what Overwatch 2's PvE mode was set to be.
"With everything that we've learned about what it takes to operate this game to the level that you deserve. It is clear that we can't deliver the original vision of PvE that was shown in 2019," Neuss said.
"What that means is that we won't be delivering that dedicated hero mode with talent trees, that long-term power progression, those things just aren't in our plans any more."
This blazed across the internet resulting in a viral storm of headlines that claimed "PvE for Overwatch 2" was cancelled.
However, just a month later, Overwatch 2 announced its "Invasion" trailer teasing "all-new story missions" among other summer updates.
While this sparked its own controversy around Activision Blizzard charging players for these story missions, it does seem clear that PvE and an exploration of Overwatch's wider story are still on the table.
This sting of disappointment was twofold.
Not only were fans told one thing for years only to have it cancelled, but it's PvE ambitions were marked as the reasons for the delay in the release of its sequel and its "necessary stasis" for Overwatch 1's development.
This resulted in minor updates to the base game for years as the community waited in anticipation for Overwatch 2's onslaught of content.
Now to definitively answer those questions you might be left with.
Yes, Overwatch 2's PvE stand-alone "mode" is dead, but Overwatch 2 will still have PvE.
What happened to Overwatch 2's PvE mode?
The in-depth, progression-based, cooperative experience has been side-lined for more regular, but segmented, hero missions.
Overwatch 2 will still have PvE elements, but heavily scaled back from the promises made during BlizzCon of 2019.