The lead author of Overwatch 2 promotes the new story-based missions for four players of the game as “a more traditional way to tell a story in the Overwatch Universe.” This task has since been taken over by trailers, seasonal events and of course Headcanon’s 2016 launch.
In an interview with the PlayStation blog, lead author Michael Chu said Overwatch 2 will “have a full story with beginning, middle and end.
“In addition, we have finally taken the story of Winston’s recall, and we hope we can continue driving the events in the coming stories into the future,” Chu said.
Chu added that the historic component of Overwatch 2 is a response to the community’s long-standing desire to playfully develop the Overwatch Canon, as opposed to non-interactive movies and other media. He acknowledged that the seasonal Archives PvE events that began in Overwatch in the spring of 2017 were largely an ‘experiment’ with story-driven content.
Blizzard said his “2x” PvE cards are the size of regular Overwatch cards, giving them new gameplay and storyline possibilities.
“We like to call the story an experience with stories,” Chu said. “It’s not a single-player campaign where you play the story in co-op with three other players, players will experience the story with their friends.”
However, we are skeptical. Earlier this month, we participated in one of the story missions at BlizzCon 2019 and found that known heroes have better or even different abilities than the players in Overwatch. “Playing with a number of heroes who play against AI-controlled opponents in 20 minutes,” said Michael McWhertor of Polygon, “was not a draw for me, and so has Overwatch.” 2. “
Overwatch’s Deputy Game Director, Aaron Keller, told PlayStation Blog that the PvP and PvE progression are “completely separate,” mainly to eliminate PvE versions of heroes with different performance from the competition.
“We do not want talent and abilities that change the gameplay to offer an unfair advantage in PvP,” Keller said. “Our goal is to develop a robust, meaningful progress system that feeds into our hero missions, where players can play and re-play for hours or after completing the Overwatch 2 story as the main game mode.”
This means that player progress in the original Overwatch will continue, and players will have access to all the content they have acquired in the first game in Overwatch 2. Similarly, Overwatch players gain access to all Overwatch 2 PvP content, with the PvE story missions being for sequel only.
Overwatch 2 was officially announced at BlizzCon 2019, although there is not even a launch window. However, it will come to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One when it starts.
At BlizzCon 2019, Game Director Jeff Kaplan said the archive event would still take place in its usual time in 2020, though it will not have a new story mission. Otherwise, Blizzard’s Overwatch team should “go dark” after the BlizzCon revelation, making today’s questions and answers on PlayStation Blog even more exciting.
