Overwatch 2’s PvE story missions were reportedly held back by Blizzard executives, with ex-devs fearing it has been completely abandoned, but is that the case? Here’s what we know about the future of PvE content in OW2.
And after seven months with no new PvE story missions, areport from Kotakuinterviewing ex-Blizzard devs, has now indicated that much of its development was hampered by executives.
In the report, many of the ex-devs feared that their work would never be released despite wanting it to stand beside the competitive game. So with the new report in tow, here is an explainer on whether Overwatch 2 PvE is still coming out.
Overwatch 2 PvE feared by ex-devs to be cancelled
According to the ex-Blizzard devs Kotaku spoke to in their report, much of the problems with Overwatch 2’s PvE release came down to Blizzard executives hampering its pipeline.
According to one dev, Blizzard executives and leadership members kept asking the devs if what they were working on was “Blizzard quality”, which resulted in delays.
“[Blizzard Quality] is a justification to essentially piss about forever and ever redoing the same work over and over,” the source said. “Some executive goes, ‘Hm, but is it Blizzard quality?’ It’s always leadership or game directors, deciding they need to spend the extra time. So honestly, if they could have just made any kind of decisions, the game would have shipped years ago.”
Additionally, the ex-devs also shed light on the fact that it was “very difficult” to adapt Overwatch’s PvP hero kits for PvE, among other problems.
It’s uncertain if PvE has well and truly been canceled internally at Blizzard, however, publicly, it has not.
“We’re going to keep experimenting, move lore into those experiences to give people who love the story more reason to be excited, but we also want to try these other things that are smaller, replayable things that give a very different experience,” Neuss said of PvE.
Jeremy Gan was a Games Writer on Dexerto’s Australia team. He is a journalism graduate and expertly covers CS:GO, Valorant, Overwatch, League of Legends, and Dota 2, as well as trending stories in Twitch and Kick streaming.
