Back in 2019, when Blizzard officially revealed Overwatch 2, one of the new features that were talked about was a PvE mode that would allow players to team up and play through a co-op, narrative-driven multiplayer experience. Each of the heroes would be reworked for PvE and the mode would have its own progression system where players could unlock new talents for the characters. Today, as Blizzard detailed what’s next for the game in 2023, they have announced that they are no longer working on that premise. The PvE component is being reworked to fit the team’s plans and philosophy for Overwatch 2.

Talking about the development of the game and what went into launching Overwatch 2 in October, Game Director Aaron Keller said “we had a difficult choice to make. We could continue working on our original vision for Overwatch 2 without a definitive end date in sight or change our strategy and get something in front of players sooner. We chose the latter and released Overwatch 2 last October with new heroes, new maps, new modes, and regular seasonal updates. But more than that, we shifted our values for how we want to develop the game.”

“No longer would we store content up for really big releases and leave the game sort of languishing on the side,” Keller said. “Now we made a commitment to always prioritize the live game and all of the people playing it and to devote our development efforts there. This game is nothing without all of you.”

Jared Neuss explains that the team’s new way of thinking has been invaluable for them in the past eight months since Overwatch 2’s launch and how much they’ve learned since then. Throughout these past months, the Overwatch team has made countless adjustments to the game whether it’s adjusting hero balance more frequently, changing all of the systems, and constantly revisiting the roadmap behind the scenes to make sure it delivers to all of the players. “And that really has been an awesome experience for us,” Neuss said. “Partially, we feel like we’re able to deliver a better game to all of you and partially, it’s because we hope that you’re enjoying it more than previously when the original game was kind of slowing down a bit in development.”

Talking about what they decided to scrap the original vision of the PvE mode, Neuss said that development on the mode hasn’t been making the progress that they hoped it would. The team has created missions that are exciting and brand new enemies and great and ridiculous hero talents. “Unfortunately, the effort required to pull all of that together into a Blizzard quality experience that we can ship to you is huge,” Neuss explained. “And there really is no end in sight, or defined kind end date where we can put that out into the world. And so we’re left with another difficult choice. Do we continue to pour all that effort into PvE, hoping we can land it some point in the future, or do we stick with the set of values we’ve aligned on and focus on the live game and serving all of you.”

“With everything we’ve learned about what it takes to operate this game at the level you deserve, it’s clear that we can’t deliver on that original vision for PvE that was shown in 2019,” Neuss said. “What that means is that we won’t be delivering that dedicated hero mode with talent trees, that long-term power progression. Those things just aren’t in our plans anymore.”

“Going forward though, rather than doing a big one time PvE releasing and rather than pouring all of our efforts into these singular releases, we’re planning to make co-op gameplay and co-op experiences just part of our live roadmap,” Keller said. “We want you to be able to experience it more often and with more variety than we had originally announced.”

The first big story-based event will be released which will kick off a new story arc for Overwatch. “Beyond that, we have a lot more co-op features planned. Some canon and some very not canon,” Keller said. “We just want to give ourselves flexibility to explore the universe of Overwatch and its cast of heroes and villains as well as try new things. We’re going to continue to find the most exciting ways of bringing new experiences to the running game on a frequent and consistent basis.”

#Overwatch2: A Look Ahead ✨

Join us as we share more details about everything we have planned for 2023, including new events, PvE, new Heroes, new maps, & more.

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— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) May 16, 2023

Co-op missions are not the only thing on the horizon for Overwatch 2. In the latest roadmap, players can see all the team has in store for the game including a new limited time event, cinematic reveal, and the return of Summer Games in season 5, story missions, the new Flashpoint game mode, new support hero and more in season 6 which Neuss calls the biggest live release in Overwatch history, and a lot more in season 7 and beyond.