Name a more iconic duo than Activision Blizzard and controversy. From broken promises and publicly insulting their dedicated fans, to frat boy culture and harassment allegations in their workspace – it seems like it’s all downhill from here for the once-beloved company.
Before all the controversy and whatnot, Blizzard was the pinnacle of the gaming industry, able to pull in millions, if not billions, of dollars with each game release or expansion. One of their biggest games that amassed an incredible following in a short amount of time was Overwatch and Overwatch 2, which were released in 2016 and 2022, respectively. However, thanks to upper management’s poor handling of both the staff and the game, many players consider the sequel to the critically-acclaimed game to be dead and that whatever bandage solution Blizzard has or will have won’t fix it.
Overwatch is known to be a 6v6 competitive shooter game where players must duke it out in order to achieve their respective objectives. What made this game unique was the variety of characters and maps that made it easy to get hooked but difficult to master, and players were fixated. However, due to its explosive growth, the developers pushed for too many things that ultimately alienated and burned out their player base.
The game was still active despite all these things, but fans were caught off guard when Blizzard suddenly announced a sequel. Overwatch 2 was announced during Blizzcon 2019, an event held specifically by and for Blizzard, and was met with a relatively mixed response. Many people felt it was too early to release a sequel, especially when its predecessor still had a lot of life left in it if given the chance. However, Blizzard justified the sequel thanks to a brand new PVE feature, where players must work together and fight waves of AI in a gripping campaign mode.
Overwatch Devs have given an update on Overwatch 2’s PvE feature
Scrapping much of the original product. Many Overwatch creators and personalities are pissed pic.twitter.com/jowEegirIs
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) May 16, 2023
However, when Overwatch 2 was released, many were scratching their heads and wondering where the promised campaign mode was, as the only thing available was the base PVP that people were used to. The developers stated that the mode was not yet ready and would instead be added at a later date. Unfortunately, all those plans seem to be gone now, as Blizzard has officially announced that they will be cancelling development of the PVE mode altogether in a recent Dev Chat where the executive producer made the announcement.
Players are understandably furious as they believe Overwatch 2 has no right to have “2” in its title anymore, as all there is to the game is some minor tweaks, balancing changes, and some redesigns that could have been made to the base game. Many believe it was due to poor upper management at Blizzard and the subsequent mass exodus of workers; it is because of this lack of manpower that Blizzard can no longer man both the PVP and PVE aspects of the game.
https://twitter.com/RiotLavaliere/status/1483872301175107584?s=20
In order to keep all the progress made so that it wouldn’t go to waste, Blizzard decided to essentially chop up all the PVE aspects and sprinkle them in later seasons.
“But at the same time, what we came away with from that first experience was a new value for developing Overwatch. It was a new value for running the team, namely to always be putting out fresh, exciting, fun, new experiences for our players. As we were running up to launching Overwatch 2, we realised that we could not build that other game. We couldn’t save up all of that content over the course of what was looking to be at least the next several years to finish it, and by doing that, pulling more and more resources away from the people that were all playing our game and all the people that would be playing Overwatch 2. So we made a decision later last year that we would focus all of our efforts on the live running game and all of our PvE efforts on this new story arc that we’re launching in Season 6. And then on top of that, to keep all of our PvE efforts, all of our co-op efforts, invested in our seasonal releases rather than that one big boxed release.” – Aaron Keller, Game Director of Overwatch 2
We’ve gone from Overwatch 2 featuring a fully fledged pve campaign, with deep hero progression, hero talents, and much more… to seeing that very idea gutted to bulk out a woeful F2P battle pass system.
What a terrible situation.
Is this game…
— Stylosa (@Stylosa) May 16, 2023
Gamers were furious not simply because the promised mode was cancelled but because Blizzard had already made the decision to cancel it over a year ago and still withheld the information until now. Realising this, people definitely felt cheated, as they had been led by the nose. A massive outcry has thrown the community into disarray as Overwatch was the last glimmer of hope the company had, save for Diablo IV – but it is yet to be seen if that game will be, to put it mildly, butchered too.
