The game's director shed light on the behind-the-scenes of the PvE removal.
A week ago, Blizzard announced it had scrapped the PvE (Hero) mode in Overwatch 2 presented in 2019, the one that was supposed to be a pillar of the new game. Predictably, the fans aren't happy, so the shooter's director Aaron Keller released a statement discussing the future of the game.
He once again reminded players that they will see PvE content in the form of co-op Story Missions – basically, Archives, which tell a "linear narrative about the heroes of Overwatch reuniting and battling the new Null Sector threat." He promised "huge maps with new enemies and new cinematics" and said they'd be in the game in Season 6.
Hero Missions, however, will not be a part of the game despite the team being "passionate" about and dedicated to it. Team 4, the group of developers behind Overwatch, "had a crawl, walk, run plan. Overwatch was the crawl, a dedicated version of PvE was the walk, and an MMO was the run."
Keller implied the work on the PvE part started soon after the first game was released, but the team couldn't handle it, and the strategy didn't work:
"We struggled to find our footing with the Hero Mission experience early on. Scope grew. 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."
Now, the developers are focusing on making Overwatch 2 an "ever-evolving experience." They aim to build many elements they talked about at BlizzCon 2019, including the Story Missions, new, unannounced types of co-op content, and new stories.
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