Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller and govt producer Jared Neuss introduced Tuesday in a Twitch stream {that a} cornerstone of the game’s promised story mode, Hero Missions, had been canceled. The game’s fanbase hasn’t taken too kindly to the information, which is why on Friday, Keller took to the Overwatch Blog to supply a extra in-depth rationalization behind the choice.
In 2019, the Overwatch 2 group introduced upcoming PvE content material within the type of Story Missions and Hero Missions (or “Hero Mode”). Keller reiterated Friday that whereas improvement on the latter mode has stopped, the previous continues to be set to return to Overwatch 2 later this 12 months. “The work done here is amazing, leaps and bounds above what we’ve built for PvE previously in our game, and I can’t wait for our players to get their hands on them,” Keller stated. “We’ll be sharing more details there in the coming weeks.”
Concerning the cancellation of Overwatch 2’s Hero Missions, which might have allowed gamers to improve particular person heroes via expertise timber in what was purported to be a deeply replayable PvE model of the game, Keller goes into the historical past of Overwatch as a game born out of the cancellation of an MMO Blizzard was growing, codenamed Project Titan. The plan, Keller says, was to maintain constructing on Overwatch to make it one thing greater — not fairly Titan-sized, however absolutely featured.
“When we launched Overwatch in 2016, we quickly started talking about what that next iteration could be,” Keller stated. “Looking again at that second, it’s now apparent that we weren’t as targeted as we must always have been on a game that was a runaway hit. Instead, we stayed targeted on a plan that was years previous. Work started on the PvE portion of the game and we steadily continued shifting an increasing number of of the group to work on these options.
(*2*)
After a lot inside deliberation, the group determined to cancel Overwatch 2’s Hero Missions — a choice Keller acknowledged would upset most of the game’s gamers. “This has been hard for us, but as the director on this project, I have to do my best to make decisions that put the game and the community first, even when those decisions are disappointing,” Keller stated. “In this case, I had trouble pivoting away from a vision that just wasn’t working. And for that I would like to apologize to our players and to our team. I’m sorry.”
Keller closes out the publish by stating the Overwatch 2 group continues to be dedicated to delivering Story Missions, new co-op content material, and new tales informed each inside and outdoors of the game itself. Keller’s ultimate observe compares this level in Overwatch 2’s improvement to that of Project Titan, representing “a moment of metamorphosis” for the group and the challenge. Added Keller, “This is another moment of change. And the future of Overwatch will be born out of it.”
“We are focusing our efforts and our passion into making this game an ever-evolving experience,” Keller stated. “We are still committed to building many of the elements we talked about at BlizzCon 2019, including the Story Missions that delve into the next chapter of the Overwatch universe, new types of co-op content we haven’t yet shared, and new stories that we’re planning to tell both in and out of the game. We’re excited about this direction and we can’t wait for you to finally get to experience what we’ve been building.”
