Blizzard seems to be in hot water with the announcement of cancelling Overwatch 2 PVE story mode.
Overwatch 2 was announced in 2019 and released in 2022 as a sequel and replacement to Overwatch. When the 2019 announcement came out, many were confused as to why the big number “2” had been slapped onto the title. Overwatch was a live service game, meaning it was being constantly updated, so a sequel seemed unnecessary when a series of updates would achieve the same effect. The justification for this game was the PVE story mode that was promised throughout the production of the game. However, this story mode has been scrapped in favour of a longer form release as part of the “roadmap” of the future of the game.
This is another in a long list of controversial decisions and backtracking that has taken place over the course of Overwatch 2, one of the most major of which being the sequel becoming a replacement for the original game. In an official statement, Blizzard have said that they chose to scrap the PVE section of the game as they have an “inability to deliver at Blizzard level of quality” so the smaller releases will be the priority. The statement also states that the story mode progression system and skill trees teased at launch will not be included in the final version of the PVE stories released with each season.
There have been a lot of responses to the announcement online, with many people being enraged by the decision. Twitter is flooded with people sharing their thoughts on the decision. Some even speculate that this is being used to boost Battle Pass sales each season as people hope to advance in the new story mode of Overwatch 2.
Others have pointed out that Overwatch already had PVE content drops in the original game with the seasonal events. Although some are outlandish, such as Winston’s Yeti Hunt, others like Uprising, Retribution and Storm Rising already being PVE story mode events as a part of the Archives Event. This would mean that Overwatch 2 offers little over the original game thanks to the exclusion of the before mentioned progression features.
Blizzard seems to be in hot water with this announcement, with a vocal online community calling out that this is yet another broken promise for the game. Despite the uproar, however, the community is clearly still willing to buy the Battle Passes dropped with each season, with the numbers still being high, meaning the game is far from in financial trouble.
