Blizzard Entertainment has officially cancelled its planned Overwatch 2 co-op PvE hero mode after initially announcing it in 2019. The mode was one of the sequel’s biggest attractions for players as Blizzard originally stated that it would arrive sometime after the free-to-play launch, allowing players to take on a more robust single-player or co-op PvE offering set in the Overwatch universe. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the company is moving forward with its plans any longer.
Speaking in a recent livestream laying out Overwatch 2‘s roadmap, Blizzard confirmed that it will be scrapping the anticipated PvE hero mode for the game. While details are murky about its cancellation, the company said that it wasn’t making the progress it hoped for and decided to pull the plug in order to focus on the game’s live service elements.
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Overwatch 2 executive producer Jared Neuss talked about the mode’s cancellation:
“Development on the PvE experience really hasn’t made the progress that we would have hoped. The team has created a bunch of amazing content, so there’s awesome missions that are really exciting, there’s brand-new enemies that are super fun to fight, and some truly great and ridiculous hero talents. But unfortunately, the effort required to pull all of that together into a Blizzard-quality experience that we can ship to you is huge and there really is no end in sight, or defined kind of end date when we can put that out into the world.”
Neuss added that the team will instead continue focusing on building the live service elements of Overwatch 2 as it simply wouldn’t be able to deliver on the promises of the PvE mode which proved to be a massive undertaking for Blizzard:
“And so, we’re left with another difficult choice. Do we continue to pour all of that effort into PvE, hoping that we can land it at some point in the future, or do we stick with this set of values we’ve aligned on and focus on the live game and focus on serving all of you? With everything we’ve learned about what it takes to operate this game at the level that you deserve, it’s clear that we can’t deliver on the original vision for PvE that was shown in 2019.”
However, that’s not to say that Overwatch 2 will never receive any sort of PvE content. Blizzard plans to release smaller PvE updates along the way featuring co-op gameplay that players can try out. Regardless of the compromise, the community swiftly responded with a lot of criticism aimed at Blizzard’s disappointing decision.
Overwatch 2 is currently available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC. Watch the full developer update below:
Source: Blizzard
