Overwatch 2: PvE mode basically scrapped and only slimmed down

Overwatch 2 has always been designed not as a pure PvP multiplayer title, but should also have a PvE component. Such a thing is actually coming, albeit in a much different way than originally planned.

The original plan was to release Overwatch 2 as a big game with extensive PvP and PvE content. Blizzard Entertainment later decoupled these two areas from each other and first launched the competitive PvP part, which has been successful ever since. The PvE part should follow – and it does now, albeit in a significantly different form than previously assumed.

As Game Director Aaron Keller and Executive Producer Jared Neuss now explained in a Twitch stream, the PvE component is now on the way, but in a slimmed down form. In short: You can no longer expect a fully-fledged PvE game in the Overwatch universe – contrary to earlier plans.

The roadmap for the next three seasons has now been revealed – and in Season 6, PvE story missions will also be included in the game. In addition, there should also be a new support hero and a time-limited event called Questwatch. But back to the story missions: Instead of a full PvE game, these are now to be integrated into the live service roadmap. Translated this means: In the course of future seasons you will always get new story missions at hand, but you can no longer expect a sprawling, hours of captivating and overall coherent PvE experience for the start.

It also fits that the progression system originally intended for the PvE part, including hero-specific talent trees, has been scrapped and will therefore no longer appear. “Unfortunately, the development of the PvE experience has really not made the progress that we had hoped for,” Neuss explains in general.

And further: “The team has created a bunch of great content, so there will be impressive missions that are really exciting. There are brand new enemies and some really great and ridiculous hero talents. But unfortunately all the efforts that are necessary To put it all together and release it in Blizzard quality is really huge and there’s really no end in sight, so we were faced with another difficult decision: Let’s continue to put all our efforts into PvE and hope that eventually we can in the future, or do we focus on the live game?”

Ultimately, it became clear that the original vision for PvE, which was first shown in 2019, will not be able to be fulfilled. As a result, many elements have now been scrapped and cooperative PvE story missions will be released as part of the live service plan – but not a full PvE mode.