Just as the controversies seemed to finally be dying down,Overwatch 2is thrust back into the spotlight once more, and this time, it’s arguably worse than ever. WhenOverwatch 2was first announced back in 2019, its biggest selling point was its introduction of story missions, something that fans had been longing for since the original game’s release back in 2016. Not only wouldOverwatch 2have story missions, but these missions would come packaged with long-term progression trees for each hero.
Flash forward to last week, and Blizzard makes the bold decision to announce thatOverwatch 2’s large-scale story modeis no longer happening. In its place, the game will receive occasional PvE missions, with the first coming inOverwatch 2Season 6. Naturally, this announcement has been extremely disappointing for manyOverwatchfans, and now these PvE missions have a steep uphill battle ahead of them.
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Overwatch 2’s PvE Missions Won’t Hold a Candle to The Original Vision
The first and only timeOverwatch 2’s story mode was shown was duringBlizzCon 2019. Originally called “Hero Missions,” Blizzard presented this story mode asOverwatch 2’s second half, said to be just as expansive as the game’s competitive side. A big focus of this brief presentation was this mode’s progression system, which would apparently stretch out across the game’s 30+ heroes, giving each one their own set of unique skills and abilities that could be unlocked through natural progression.Overwatch 2’s story mode would also introduce a slew of new enemy types, and all of it was originally set to release withOverwatch 2on day one.
As fans know, that never happened. A little while before launch, Blizzard announced thatOverwatch 2would be transitioning to a free-to-play model, and its long-awaited PvE content would be decoupled from the base game experience, and given to players at a later date for an extra fee. While this approach took some fans quite a bit of time to get on board with,Overwatch 2still managed to have a successful launch, with many fans just trusting that Blizzard would still make do on its expansive PvE promises.
But just last week, Blizzard announced thatOverwatch 2would no longer be receiving the same PvE mode that it had been promising fans for the last four years. In a recent developer livestream,Overwatch 2’s Executive Producer, Jared Neuss, commented thatOverwatch 2’s Hero Missions had not progressed as far as the team would have liked, and although the devs working on that PvE content had apparently created some stunning hero abilities and set pieces, it wasn’t enough to save the mode from termination.
In lieu of Hero Missions, the mode fans have been looking forward to for four years, Blizzard has confirmed that PvE is still coming toOverwatch 2in the near-future, albeit in a stripped-down format. These upcomingOverwatch 2PvE missions will follow the rest of the game’s live-service approach, meaning that players will likely receive a new PvE mission every few months or so. However, it could be even longer between content drops as Blizzard hasn’t confirmed anything.
As for the missions themselves, Blizzard is being vague right now, but it seems likely that they’ll follow in the footsteps of recent limited-time events likeOverwatch 2’s Halloween event, where players join together to defeat a few waves of enemies and make their way through a linear mission. While these missions could end up being good, they probably won’t be able to live up to the lofty expectations fans had for Hero Missions. That sour taste is going to linger aroundOverwatch 2for quite some time.
Overwatch 2is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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