Image: Blizzard Entertainment
In a controversial move, Blizzard is cancelling Overwatch 2’s Hero Missions in favour of more live-service multiplayer content.
Activision Blizzard has announced that Overwatch 2’s long-awaited PvE story mode is getting gutted. When the sequel was announced back in 2019, Blizzard claimed that it would feature a dense story campaign with PvE ‘Hero Missions’ designed to be endlessly replayable, with skill trees and long-term progression. These Hero Missions are now no more.
In a recent live stream going over the making of the game’s recent Starwatch event, Blizzard quickly went over an all-new content roadmap for the rest of 2023. Before that, however, game director Aaron Keller announced that a “difficult choice,” had been made to cancel Hero Missions for the game as there was, “no end in sight,” for their development. Executive producer Jared Neuss reiterated that “Progress on the PvE experience hasn't made the progress that we would hope.”
Neuss said:
… It's clear that we can't deliver on the original vision for PvE that was shown in 2019. What that means is 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 anymore.
For a long time before launch, Overwatch 2’s PvE content and Hero Missions were a big part of Blizzard’s marketing push for the sequel. The game was sold with the promise that it would eventually feature story missions where players could play as different heroes on the same team, level up talent trees to alter hero abilities and finally advance the story of Overwatch for the first time since the original game was released. The mode was also set to feature new maps and expanded versions of existing maps, such as King’s Row.
This is what the talent system would have looked like:
During the live stream, Blizzard clarified that this didn’t mean the story campaign was going away - it was just getting majorly downsized. Instead of one large Story Mode drop, Blizzard plans to release standalone story missions over upcoming seasons, featuring cinematics that will, “push the narrative arc of Overwatch forward for the first time since the original game release." These missions will only be co-op in the same vein as Junkenstein’s Revenge and Archives missions - meaning that they’re one-and-done. There won’t be any form of progression, talent trees or replayability.
Blizzard is shifting these resources towards other parts of the sequel, mainly the live-service components that keep new content coming over upcoming seasons. The developer revealed a roadmap for Overwatch 2 Season 5 to Season 7 and beyond, which will see new limited-time events, cinematics, story missions, new heroes, new maps, and an all-new permanent game mode called Flashpoint. Here's the roadmap:
Season 6 is set to feature the sequel’s biggest content drop ever, with story missions, a new support hero, single player Hero Mastery missions, a permanent game mode called Flashpoint that comes with two new maps and Overwatch’s 2023 Anniversary event. That season is planned to kick off in August, while Season 5 is set to feature a fantasy-themed event called Questwatch. Season 7 and beyond will see reworks for Roadhog and Sombra, which is unfortunate if you main either hero and have to wait an entire year or more to see them get balanced up. Another collaboration event similar to Overwatch 2’s One Punch Man event is also in the works.