Overwatch 2 Cancels PvE Hero Mode

Overwatch 2 has scrapped its big PvE mode, but it will still be getting some PvE content. Overwatch is one of the biggest new franchises of the last decade and is an incredibly successful hero-based FPS from Blizzard. It managed to sustain itself on a singular game for over half a decade, but Blizzard decided to make a sequel that used the bones of its predecessor to expand the game into something a bit more ambitious with plans for various PvE content. With that said, Overwatch 2 launched without this content last year and the multiplayer felt incredibly similar to the first game, so much so that some players questioned the need for a sequel.

With all of that said, the long-awaited PvE content for Overwatch 2 is basically not happening now. The expected Hero mode with skill trees, talents, and all kinds of other big ambitious ideas has been scrapped. Instead, Blizzard will now deliver smaller co-op missions that players can play, but Overwatch has already seen content like this in the past. GameSpot had a lengthy interview with Game director Aaron Keller and executive producer Jared Neuss discussing why exactly the PvE mode fell apart. In short, the team realized the time and resources needed to complete the mode would take away far too much from the development of the rest of Overwatch 2.

“But at the same time, what we came away with from that first experience was a new value for developing Overwatch,” said Keller. “It was a new value for running the team, namely to always be putting out fresh, exciting, fun, new experiences for our players. As we were running up to launching Overwatch 2, we realized that we could not build that other game. We couldn’t save up all of that content over the course of what was looking to be at least the next several years to finish it, and by doing that, pulling more and more resources away from the people that were all playing our game and all the people that would be playing Overwatch 2. So we made a decision later last year that we would focus all of our efforts on the live running game and all of our PvE efforts on this new story arc that we’re launching in Season 6. And then on top of that, to keep all of our PvE efforts, all of our co-op efforts, invested in our seasonal releases rather than that one big boxed release.” 

As of right now, it remains to be seen if Blizzard will ever attempt to expand or broaden the appeal of Overwatch through content other than the PvP stuff it does now. It seems like Blizzard is disappointed it couldn’t make it happen, but fans are already responding to the news furiously on the internet, especially since Blizzard has known this wouldn’t be happening for a while. 

What do you think of Overwatch 2 scrapping its PvE content? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.