For those who invested entire days of their lives into the original Overwatch’s addictive gameplay, diving straight into Blizzard’s sequel to it and having just as much fun racking up kills and wins once seemed like a foregone conclusion.
Despite the game’s release back in October last year being accompanied by some criticism of its new monetisation practices and technical issues that temporarily prevented prospective players from being able to play without encountering error messages, plenty have still been enjoying it through the months and seasons since that point.
However, now many of these would-be Winstons have been left disappointed by the reveal of the fact that the game’s highly-anticipated PvE Hero Mode isn’t actually going to be released at all.
Were you looking forward to playing Overwatch 2’s planned PvE Hero Mode?
As reported by GameSpot, plans for the version of the mode with long-term talent and power-based hero progression that was described in the game’s pre-release discussions and showcases have been scrapped and replaced by regular co-op oriented additions that'll come as part of its live-service roadmap.
“We had a difficult choice to make, we could continue working on our original vision for Overwatch 2, without a definitive end date in sight, or change our strategy and get something in front of players sooner.” explained Game Director Aaron Keller in a dev update video about the game’s immediate future, which you can watch in full below.
Having outlined some of the changes and tweaks that have been made to the game’s live-service elements since its released, Executive Producer Jared Neuss added: “With everything we’ve learned about what it takes to operate this game at the level that (its players) deserve, it’s clear that we can’t deliver on that original vision for PvE that was shown in 2019.”
As Keller and Neuss acknowledge in the video, this decision has caused a lot of disappointment, with players reacting to the news on r/overwatch venting their frustration at not getting features they’ve spent years waiting for.
“At this point the first trailers they had a few months before release (are) 99% content that doesn’t exist.” argued user Tinkletree, while Afdsafsadfds declared: “(It’s) actually so depressing watching all your hopes for this game wither in real time.”
Regardless of how you feel about these changes to Overwatch 2’s development plans, make sure to follow us for updates on the game’s seasons.