Current Events > Welp, it's now official. Overwatch 2's PvE is completely cancelled.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-03-22/blizzard-entertainment-makes-big-changes-as-overwatch-2-struggles

Overwatch 2 developers were informed that the company does not plan to finish any of the remaining planned PvE content and will instead double down on competitive player vs. player gameplay, according to the people familiar.

To the surprise of no one.

So glad I lost access to OW1 for this :)

It's amazing how with every single development and announcement i want to play this less and less. I put 300+ hours into ow1. I watched and went to OWL matches. First and only time i have given a shit about esports. I want to want to play ow2, but man it's like they are speedrunning the collapse of a successful IP.

OW1 was so good. How could they drop the ball this badly?

Man, how did they fuck up Overwatch so badly? There was a time where it was everywhere.

Again, the whole point Overwatch 2 was announced was FOR the PvE. And now people can't use the excuse that they are still planning on doing PvE, just scaled back. It's ALL gone.

Who wants to see if there's some way to weasel in a class action or something? I'm sure I already waived my rights somewhere in their gods forsaken ToS & shit, but there's people that kept access to the first game & didn't touch "OW2" that could try

So the news that they were going to cancel the major PvE mode that they originally advertised came a while back. Months ago I think.

This sounds like they're going to cancel any of the remaining PvE content they had in mind, which means that the PvE events that would sometimes happen and the single player lore missions are now completely scrapped as well.

I've been saying for awhile that there isn't any real talent left at that studio and that's been made all the more clear with every brain dead decision they make with this game. It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody that PVE was ultimately going to be cancelled.

looking forward to the "classic overwatch" re-re-launch in 10 years or w/e.

I wish I could hear what Jeff Kaplan thought about this disaster.

Serious question, what ISNT Blizzard fucking up? They've dropped the ball on all their IPs.

Has blizzard done anything of note in the last decade?

what a complete scuttling of what was once a promising new IP.

Man, even the Cod devs managed to cram in 5 hours of story mode in MW3.

You figure that blizzard could do that much.

itachi15243 posted...

Man, even the Cod devs managed to cram in 5 hours of story mode in MW3.

You figure that blizzard could do that much.

Wasn't that even just a case where MW3 was intended to be MW2 DLC, but they decided to make it a full game because Treyarch's next CoD ended up delayed? They literally had more story mode in a DLC turned greedy full game cashgrab than OW2 could manage... ever.

Absurdly common Blizzard L

Lol
Lmao

Am I mistaken or was the entire point of OW2 to update the codebase and in-house engine to support PvE?

...What the fuck was the point of it then.

C-zom posted...

...What the fuck was the point of it then.

to add battlepasses and absurdly overpriced skins and trick people into thinking a game was coming with it

I kinda can't get over the CoD comparison, now.

Like, atleast the CoD team's excuse was that they were told to change their DLC into a full game, so they basically desperately added story content under a very tight deadline. It ended up bad, but atleast they tried.

OW2's entire point was being sold on the PvE aspect.

How badly do you gotta screw up that CoD looks good in comparison?

Focusing on competitive when their own league folded and their current eSports tournaments are doing 1/4 the views that OWL was.

Here's an idea, focus on making the game actually fun.

It's much easier to make bad skins and sell them than it is to make the game, please guys they have shareholders to worry about

viewmaster_pi posted...

to add battlepasses and absurdly overpriced skins and trick people into thinking a game was coming with it

Also "it's free now so the skin prices are justified "

I thought it was canceled a long time ago lol

Even fucking Suicide Squad sprinkled story on top of their battle pass nonsense.

Smashingpmkns posted...

I thought it was canceled a long time ago lol

The large PvE mode was. They still had smaller PvE stuff, like special events. This sounds like they're canceling those now, too.

I speak for everyone when I say fuck Blizzard.

You guy are all incorrect, Overwatch 2 was made a sequel so we can have battle passes instead of loot boxes!

Blizzard stinksss.

LanHikari10 posted...

Blizzard stinksss.

This is the takeaway. Can't even say it's just Activision, since Activision has a similar-ish example where the team actually did legitimately atleast try to add story, even given poor circumstances. This is like, literally all on the OW team, specifically.

I never understood why anyone cared about this. No one plays OW for the Pve lol

Prestoff posted...

You guy are all incorrect, Overwatch 2 was made a sequel so we can have battle passes instead of loot boxes!

Which the players asked for and tried to get governments involved in. That ones entirely on the players not blizzard. They tried to label loot boxes and gambling and now want it back.

Overwatch 2 changes the way the entire game is played(removing the 6th player completely reinvented player dynamics) so it made sense to relaunch.

Sucks about the pve mode but I wss never hyped about that anyway.

Toonstrack posted...

I never understood why anyone cared about this. No one plays OW for the Pve lol

"lol who cares about promised features being canceled"

Have you ever tried just not posting?

The entire reason nobody plays OW for the PvE is because the PvE was never even allowed to properly exist.

Toonstrack posted...

I never understood why anyone cared about this. No one plays OW for the Pve lol

Well of course no one plays it for PvE because that feature was never delivered

StealThisSheen posted...

"lol who cares about promised features being canceled"

I said who cares about pve. I understand why folks are upset it got canceled after being promised but I dont get why anyone wanted this.

Have you ever tried just not posting?

It didn't stick.

The entire reason nobody plays OW for the PvE is because the PvE was never even allowed to properly exist.

Exactly. And the game survived just fine without it, and still does. All the people here asking for overwatch 1 back aren't asking for pve.

They had those event missions, they still do have them, thats probably all thsts really needed here. But maybe I'm just being close minded. Evnn at announcement I was kinda meh to the concept of overwatch pve.

Oh no! Well anyway...

Their PVE was always doo doo I don't know why anyone was excited to play this. PVP is where it's at.

Toonstrack posted...

And the game survived just fine without it, and still does.

I mean the game is literally dying as we speak. They are literally firing people over how badly it's doing.

Toonstrack posted...

I never understood why anyone cared about this. No one plays OW for the Pve lol

More so most people decided to play the game for the actual interesting looking characters. Not going to front, I was also initially drawn to overwatch on it's release for the cool looking cast. You had a future cowboy guy, cyber ninja, japanese guy that can shoot spirit dragon arrows, purple femme fatale sniper lady, awesome talking super smart gorilla, cute scientist chick that freezes stuff, cute korean gamer that has a mini mech, future wall skater brazillian dude with sound power equipment, egyptian lady with a power suit, these 2 crazy lookin' mad max bandits from the wilds of.....australia?, etc,. Even the more standard looking guy like soldier 76 stood out since they opted for a more colorful art style compared to something more boring/super realistic.

Understandably most people (me included) liked these characters so much they wanted a completely separate overwatch related game that 100 % focuses on all these characters and their world, not some optional mode that is just tacked onto the existing pvp focused game.

When you read some reasons on why overwatch blew up like a did on release in 2016, a good bit of these praises is about people talking about just how much they liked the characters and world the team came up with compared to the fact that it was a pvp game. *It also did not help that the usual cgi videos blizzard made for the game was giving people vibes of a pixar movie, thus making them curious about the game's setting even more.*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwatch_(video_game)

[73] Webster went on to cite the atmosphere of Overwatch as a reason for the game's approachability, writing, "The first thing that makes Overwatch's world appealing and approachable is, well, its world. This isn't the dour brown-and-grey shooter you might be used to. Instead, it's bright and colorful, with a cast of characters that's eclectic and diverse.

IGN's Vince Ingenito praised the game's characters and maps, writing "Overwatch takes just about every possible opportunity to make its cast and locales seem like people and places rather than puppets and scenery." Ingenito added that the game has a "strong online experience that gets you into games quickly and reliably."[

Caty McCarthy of Kill Screen echoed similar thoughts, writing "When playing Overwatch, the player is absorbed by its radiating positivity. It's a world filled with lively color and energetic, playful competition, much like Nintendo's creative kid-friendly ink-shooter Splatoon."

Like there is just as many as these types of reviews as there are of the ones talking about the initially fun pvp gameplay, so it wasn't just solely the pvp stuff that got people to check out overwatch.

I only care about pve stuff myself, I prefer story campaigns to death matches. I'm not making a value judgemental mind, nothing wrong with someone who wants to play ab exclusively pvp game, just saying that I would personally only be interested in a pve mode; it's why I bought Titanfall 2 but not 1 as I heard it has no campaign.

I mean the characters are interesting but they would have to have a separate game and to be built from the ground up with a gameplay system different enough from the PVP that you would have to build it around 1 to 3 characters max.

one of the biggest scams in history

SpiritSephiroth posted...

Serious question, what ISNT Blizzard fucking up? They've dropped the ball on all their IPs.

A lot of people seem to be fairly happy with WoW currently, tho i don't really get why. the most recent xpac is like the most mid thing in existence

deoxxys posted...

I mean the characters are interesting but they would have to have a separate game and to be built from the ground up with a gameplay system different enough from the PVP that you would have to build it around 1 to 3 characters max.

This was quite literally Blizzard's reasoning for Overwatch 2. They, quite literally, sold it as "We're going to take the game that exists, and add a major PvE component, which necessitates the need for a new game, instead of just adding on to Overwatch 1." They killed off Overwatch 1 based entirely on false promises, when, in reality, Overwatch 2 is just Overwatch 1 but with more microtransactions.

StealThisSheen posted...

I mean the game is literally dying as we speak. They are literally firing people over how badly it's doing.

Everyone is firing people in gaming right now.

The player numbers however remain solid.

Like, do people want aeague of legends pve too? It just seems like the kinda thing the game isn't made for. Overwatches entire identity is about pvp, all the character abilities are based around that concept. Like another user said you'd have to basiicslly reinvent the game from the ground up.

This game felt weird day 1. They made it seem as tons of other stuff was coming out, and while that happened none of those things were games. Meanwhile Overwatch itself was what other franchises have as a spinoff game but as the main product. Lorewise the game doesnt even make sense.

Toonstrack posted...

The player numbers however remain solid.

6 month ago peak: 75k

Current timeframe peak: 39k

Are you sure on that one? It's literally dropped by almost half, in 6 months. Palworld, an early access, blatantly incomplete game, has almost 3x as many active players, and its initial hype has died.

StealThisSheen posted...

This was quite literally Blizzard's reasoning for Overwatch 2. They, quite literally, sold it as "We're going to take the game that exists, and add a major PvE component, which necessitates the need for a new game, instead of just adding on to Overwatch 1." They killed off Overwatch 1 based entirely on false promises, when, in reality, Overwatch 2 is just Overwatch 1 but with more microtransactions.

Yes but not really. I know exactly what happened. Overwatch 2 was more of an excuse to change the microtransaction system, change the PVP format to 5v5 and intended to have more of a single player experience BUT what I'm talking about is a separate spin-off game is what would be required, completely changing how combat is done. It would require focusing on just maybe one or two playable characters so that the game could thrive and actually be a fun single player experience and not just feel like one of their seasonal PVE events squared with tacked on ability trees.

Toonstrack posted...

Like another user said you'd have to basiicslly reinvent the game from the ground up.

Which, again, was literally the entire premise for why Overwatch 2 was necessary, instead of just adding to Overwatch 1, so, uh...

deoxxys posted...

Yes but not really. I know exactly what happened. Overwatch 2 was more of an excuse to change the microtransaction system, change the PVP format to 5v5 and intended to have more of a single player experience BUT what I'm talking about is a separate spin-off game is what would be required, completely changing how combat is done. It would require focusing on just maybe one or two playable characters so that the game could thrive and actually be a fun single player experience and not just feel like one of their seasonal PVE events squared with tacked on ability trees.

You can say all this, but we literally have proof for how Blizzard sold the idea of Overwatch 2, which was "We're going to include this big PvE element but we have to make a new game to do so."

Why are you trying so hard to excuse them?

Zwijn posted...

Lorewise the game doesnt even make sense.

The overall story of the game world literally has not advanced since the release of OW1, and with no PVE coming, I don't think it ever will.