Blizzard has spent four years selling an Overwatch 2 that’s never happening.
Blizzard pulled the plug on its long-awaited persistent co-op mode in Overwatch 2. The disappointing news is a turning point for Overwatch, as Blizzard is officially done trying to turn Overwatch into some grander competitive FPS-RPG-MMO thing. But more than that, this week has changed how I (and I bet many others) see one of my favorite games.
To now hear from game director Aaron Keller that it was always the plan to turn Overwatch into the original vision of the canceled Project Titan MMO, it feels like we’ve only been getting half the story on Overwatch all these years. It’s hard to accept that Blizzard has burned so much goodwill on its failed ambitions for PvE when that time and effort could’ve been focused on growing the core Overwatch experience that, despite recent disappointments, is truly great. As a player I’m frustrated, but it must be infuriating for the Blizzard devs whose years of work on Hero mode will amount to nothing.
If the stewards of Overwatch have struggled this long to understand the game they have on their hands—a one-of-a-kind hero shooter with dazzling heroes and unparalleled variety—why should we trust in what comes next? My confidence in the Overwatch team to follow through on its base promises is at an all-time low.
Overwatch 2, as an idea, has failed. I’ve been thinking a lot about that Blizzcon 2019 announcement this week, and just how inevitable this all was in hindsight.Blizz-conned
Like, it probably wasn’t the best sign when fans walked away from the Overwatch 2 announcement confused about what Blizzard was actually making. It’s my job to communicate facts about games, and I barely knew what to make of the reveal. Blizzard showed a grand cinematic trailer in the studio’s signature style and a brief gameplay trailer showing off all the new stuff promised for the sequel—the biggest by far being its story missions and «highly replayable» co-op Hero mode with talent trees and progression.
Then former game director Jeff Kaplan took the stage and started saying things that seemingly contradicted the whole ‘2’ part of Overwatch 2:
There would be new modes, maps, and heroes, but those would automatically carry over to Overwatch 1 players and the two games would still matchmake together…weird.
Skins carried over too, but new skins would have to be earned in the new game.
Overwatch 2 was to be a full standalone game you buy, but parts of it would just be free for existing players?
Kaplan acknowledged that Overwatch 2 wouldn’t be a conventional sequel, but assured fans that it would feel like a sequel-sized product.
