Generally we were all worried because it was a rework that definitely had to be considered before the 2-2-2 and long before the failed hero pool. More than anything I think the announcement has broken the community like the Symmetra rework: who has faith in the new idea and who has seen a “not my overwatch anymore”.
But the best summary you can do is: give it to us in OW1 rather than making the hype for OW2 unnecessarily heavy.
this is Blizzard’s fault, 100%. I can absolutely agree or disagree with the reasons that led to the cancellation of the original name, but there has been very little attention to the sensitivity of the “readers of the lore” (which we are not few, let us know).
conversion Jesse McCree> Cole Cassidy is a retcon? deleted in internal files the voicelines of Retribution where it is clearly said “Jesse McCree” seems to be, but many cling to the desperation that the change was a choice of the cowboy over the course of the lore. The fact that Blizzard still doesn’t make it clear that if it could (but can’t) it would delete the McCree name in past editorial products as well (Reunion, artbooks, deadlock rebels book) is the equivalent of “There are no cow levels in Diablo” but in an extremely annoying and disrespectful formula. Jesse McCree did exist and to pretend it didn’t happen even though they first pointed out this change is … very little in line with their promise to “communicate with us more often”. And of course it is even more annoying that there has been a huge priority to this name change over the needs of the game (balancing the competitive, for example).
There’s really no effort to direct Cassidy’s identity the equivalent of Reyes / Reaper or Wrecking ball / Hammond, and that’s not fair. It almost makes you feel wrong in saying McCree, even though they were the first to say that we are not punishable in using the old name. It would be peaceful for everyone to have the definitive conformation which is a retcon, regardless of whether it was a correct choice or not. We may hate them for that, but there would be a definitive point to the matter.
On this … strangely I disagree. Or rather, the term “life support” is incorrect. Diablo III has life support. HotS has vital support, and its live-service events are never properly updated like OW. Paradoxically, OW continues to have a huge organizational priority on blizzard’s part: skins, editorial products, e-sports ads … these factors are paradoxically what make OW not abandoned and “in development” as a franchise. If we had the same amount of news that HotS or even worse StarCraft currently has, then the term “life support” is correct. But as I said earlier, the disrespectfulness of OW “1” is not to prioritize 5v5 for the community that exists now, and to send this ambitious composition to a project-messiah called “OW2”.
In 2022 they should … degrease the importance of OW2. Yes, OW2 is too fattened as expectations of a Day One that can only be late in coming, if you continue to load it with responsibility.