In what he described as an “emotional week”, director Aaron Keller opened up about the decision to cancel Overwatch 2’s planned PvE Hero mode, saying that the team “struggled to find its footing” amid what he called high expectations for the mode.
“Things rarely go as planned in game development. We struggled to find our footing with the Hero Mission experience early on. Scope grew,” Keller wrote in a new blog post. “We were trying to do too many things at once and we lost focus. The team built some really great things, including hero talents, new enemy units and early versions of missions, but we were never able to bring together all of the elements needed to ship a polished, cohesive experience.”
According to Keller, the PvE Hero mode was an “exciting but gargantuan vision” that kept pulling resources away from the live game. Finally, Keller says, the development team realized it had to walk away.
“This has been hard for us, but as the director on this project, I have to do my best to make decisions that put the game and the community first, even when those decisions are disappointing. In this case, I had trouble pivoting away from a vision that just wasn’t working. And for that I would like to apologize to our players and to our team. I’m sorry,” Keller wrote.
The shocking decision to cancel Hero Mode
The decision to cancel Overwatch 2’s Hero mode shocked its community when it was announced earlier this week, leaving some to wonder why Blizzard had opted to make a sequel in the first place. Overwatch 2 has gone through many iterations since its original announcement, finally settling on a refined version of the first game featuring expanded co-op and narrative missions.
Reflecting on Overwatch 2’s journey to this point, Keller called Hero mode an attempt to make good on Blizzard’s original vision for Project Titan — the “MMO FPS” that eventually became 2016’s Overwatch. Blizzard’s plan was to introduce a PvE mode featuring new hero abilities, co-op attacks, and a level progression system, with the intention being to release it as seasonal content in 2023.
“It was built into the DNA of the team early on, and some of us considered that final game a true realization of the original vision of Project Titan,” Keller wrote.
I had trouble pivoting away from a vision that just wasn’t workingInstead, Overwatch 2 will be focusing on more straightforward story missions, which will feature “fast-paced, co-op gameplay, as well as story, cinematics, and cutscenes.” Keller claims that the mode will “take place on huge maps with new enemies and new cinematics,” with a planned release set for Season 6.
“The work done here is amazing, leaps and bounds above what we’ve built for PvE previously in our game, and I can’t wait for our players to get their hands on them. We’ll be sharing more details there in the coming weeks,” Keller wrote.
Overwatch 2 tries to move forward
In addition to the planned story missions, Blizzard shared an extensive roadmap running through Season 7 and beyond, including multiple new heroes, events, and more.
For now, Overwatch 2’s development team — and its community — is trying to move on, Keller wrote. “Overwatch was born from the ashes of Project Titan. It was a moment of metamorphosis for the team and the project… and something beautiful came out of it. This is another moment of change. And the future of Overwatch will be born out of it.”
For more, check out our review of Overwatch 2, which we praised for breahing “new life into what was once the sharpest multiplayer shooter around.”
Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
