During a programmer livestream today, Blizzard exposed its roadmap for the coming months. The roadmap, which existed by game supervisor Aaron Keller and also exec manufacturer Jared Neuss, information what is coming throughout Season 5, 6, 7, and also past. In enhancement to PvP updates, the Overwatch 2 designers likewise provided us a concept of when to anticipate the long-awaited PvE experience that was introduced together with the game in 2019.
“As work slowly continued on Overwatch 2, we began to pull more and more of our focus and energy away from the live game and all of the people that were playing it,” Keller stated on the stream. “We had people that were excited to be playing that game, and they just wanted more of it. So, 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 we 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. Now, we made the commitment to always prioritize the live game and all of the people playing it and to devote our development efforts there.”
Season 5, which has the style of “Mischief and Magic,” is presently readied to begin on June 13. This 5th period of the live-service shooter brings occasions and also settings, consisting of a brand-new limited-time occasion called Questwatch, along with the return of the Summer Games occasion. The roadmap likewise assures a motion picture expose, a 5v5 mini comp period, the Creator Workshop setting, and also the return of the On Fire technician that existed in Overwatch.
Season 6, which is established for later on this summer season, is declared by Blizzard as the solitary biggest decline of brand-new gameplay launched at once given that Overwatch 2 released in October of in 2014. Season 6 assures a brand-new assistance hero, Flashpoint, Hero Mastery, a Firing Range, a gamer development system, and also the yearly Overwatch wedding anniversary occasion. Perhaps most notably, Season 6 offers gamers the PvE web content that was introduced back in 2019, as Story Missions show up as component of Season 6. Unfortunately, the Hero Missions PvE setting has actually been reduced from the group’s strategies.
“Development on the PvE experience really hasn’t made the progress that we would have hoped,” Neuss stated on the stream. “The team has created a bunch of amazing content. So, there’s awesome missions that are really exciting, there’s brand new enemies that are super fun to fight, and some truly great and ridiculous hero talents. But unfortunately, the effort required to pull all of that together to a Blizzard-quality experience that we can ship to you is huge, and there really is no end in sight or defined kind of 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 that we can land it at some point in the future or do we stick with this set of values that we’ve aligned on and focus on the live game and focus on serving all of you? With everything we’ve learned about what it takes to operate this game at the level that you deserve, it’s clear that we can’t deliver on that original vision for PvE that was shown in 2019. 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.”
Finally, we discovered what gamers can anticipate from Season 7 and also past, that includes a brand-new container hero, remodels of long time heroes Roadhog and also Sombra, a brand-new Control map, a brand-new winter season occasion, brand-new Hero Mastery goals in multiplayer, motion picture launchings, the turn of fan-favorite settings and also Competitive Mastery heroes, a brand-new limited-time partnership occasion setting, and also a brand-new tradition codex.
Overwatch 2 released on October 4, 2022. While the first feedback declared (review our evaluation here), the method to sustaining the game and also the period pass framework has actually hindered numerous gamers from staying on par with the title.
