Overwatch 2 was promoted for a long time with an extensive story-driven campaign mode, which has now been abandoned.
Blizzard Entertainment has canceled the long-awaited release of Overwatch 2’s expansive story-driven PvE campaign mode.
The developers say in the latest video blog that the original vision was too broad and ambitious for an online game. The campaign was to feature over 40 characters, each with their own unique skill and ability tree. They wanted to give games and tasks for tens of hours. However, despite years of advertising, this will not happen.
However, players will not be completely without story-based tasks. Already in the next season some missions will be added to the game, but they are completely different in execution than advertised and much shorter in duration.
Blizzard announced in 2019 that it was developing Overwatch 2, which would replace the original Overwatch, in the fall of 2022. The sequel was released for free.
The sequel was justified, among other things, by the PvE campaign and tasks that could not be added to the original game. Due to the development of sequels, the final years of the original Overwatch were content-poor.
Trampling the vast and ambitious story space makes many people see the color red. Blizzard’s solution confused social media when the story mode had been in the works for several years.
– What a clown show.
– The whole game is now completely redundant. good job.
– 100% bullshit. The PvE experience was really what sold the whole Overwatch 2 to us gamers!
– Obviously, Blizzard really is the worst company.
On the Overwatch Reddit area, a thread about the cancellation got 1,000 comments in one hour alone. There are currently around 6,000 comments making it practically impossible to find positive comments.
The developers say in the vlog that Overwatch is primarily an online multiplayer game, under which the game is developed and improved. In an interview with GameSpot, Aaron Keller, who is responsible for the development of the game, says that the decision to reject the original idea of the PvE campaign was made in the fall of 2021.
Even though the decision was made a full year before the sequel, the developers didn’t even hint that expectations should be lowered. According to Keller, the original idea was not what the game needed or what the players wanted.
Keller’s recent comments seem downright outrageous in the light of an NME interview published earlier this year. Afterward, Keller suggested that the ambitious campaign was still to come. However, the decision to reject it had already been made.
Overwatch is one of the most popular game series from Blizzard. The original volume, published in 2016, has sold over 50 million copies. The number of players for the sequel this year has not been reported, but 25 million players tried it out in the first ten days after its release.
