The highly anticipated Overwatch 2 campaign has been surprisingly cancelled. One of the developers tells us exactly why.
Overwatch 2 was released on 04.10.2022. As the successor to Overwatch, which was released in 2016, it was supposed to bring the next big rush of players – similar to its predecessor on release. But instead of appeal, the second part earned mostly negative criticism and frustrated numerous fans. The reason for this is the decisions that publisher Activision Blizzard made for the game.
Overwatch 2: Story mode as saviour of the franchise?
Most hopes had been pinned on the PvE mode by both fans and developers, which was considered the main selling point. The multiplayer mode was to continue as an eSports title for free, while the offline mode was only to be available at an extra cost.
Already in Overwatch, there were regular PvE events that were well received by the community, but due to the development of the playerbase, they have been greatly forgotten. At the height of the title, up to 600,000 players were on the servers, which was the reason for the implementation of many new heroes and game modes.
The end of the campaign
Aaron Keller, the game’s game director, apologised in a blog to all fans for their great disappointment at the news that offline mode was off the table. He gave insights into the planned implementation and the progress that has been made. The core of the gameplay was to remain and be supplemented with a sophisticated level system as well as ability trees.
As simple as these plans sound, they were complicated by the ambitions of the developers to the point where implementation was near impossible. This was also one of the reasons why Overwatch received fewer and fewer updates towards the end of its lifetime and hero appearances became increasingly rare. The entire resources of the team went only into the PvE mode, while the main game was repeatedly neglected. This was also the reason for the decision to split the release of OW 2 into two.
Game Director @aaronkellerOW reflects on our initial ambitions for PvE, what led to the change of plans, and what the future holds for Overwatch 2.
Read it here: https://t.co/BRPTNYnlks pic.twitter.com/P3IX6kU3bk
– Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) May 19, 2023
It works without
However, despite the community’s dejection at the bad news, player numbers are almost double what they were in the Overwatch days. This is because the franchise has now earned many fans who continue to remain loyal to it.
On the positive side, the focus is now back on multiplayer, which means that more events and new heroes will probably be added to the game in the future.
