Just a reminder to folks:
People are clearly very heated and passionate about this issue… that’s totally fine. Plant that flag, die on that hill, let Blizzard have it.
Key phrase: “let blizzard have it”. Try not to take out other players in the cross fire… we didn’t make this decision, Aaron did.
You good just genuinely couldnt understand ya lmao
They could’ve still had plans to release the PvE a year and a half ago
When i read this…
“Best decisions, and community first”
Thats why we have garbage matchmaker and the horrible battle pass.
Just dont phrase stuff like that because it looks stupid.
I think they said the original pve would be paid for, but surely they wouldn’t charge people for a butchered slimmed down version, right? Right? 
To be fair, you are correct. But evidently I doubt they could do it given they cant even make basic roadmap promises work.
Tl;dr Poor indie studio incapable of making a PvE game
This sure looks like a lot of WORDS. I’m tired of seeing WORDS. I see no action except greed, and then more empty WORDS.
Sorry I’m watching Dead by Daylight’s sick Anniversary announcement. Imagine a game like Dead by Daylight announcing a PVE mode today too, literal DAYS after y’all just scrapped it just to monetize it. Truly that is some wild stuff right there and embarrassing.
Soooooo…
What exactly have you guys been working on for the past 4 years?
You constantly said “We’re working on the PVE!” But clearly you were not, so…what the heck have you guys been doing?
apparently based on some news from inside sources, all of this happens because of Blizzard President making decision about some Work from Office rule that makes the development of this became just insufferable. still though i think i agree about these higher ups just need to resign.
With regards to game development, I find it interesting that they had always tried to push the old MMO idea as their end goal even as OW in 2016 launched. He writes that they decided to start small, transition to the next part, then the final part. PVP → PVE → MMO. So, blinded by that goal, they began working soon on it, and didn’t give much consideration to how big of a deal the original PVP launch was. Instead of focusing on it and keeping up with the promised live service, they moved to the next plan soon after to try and force that old goal. They were just not flexible enough or too short sighted.
Then, the scope creep set in once they started developing hero missions. That’s rough, I worked in game design in college and similar things like that happen where we work on something that sounded great, and it takes weeks or months and then we have to scrap it because it just isn’t working and didn’t fit and couldn’t be forced in. So, likewise, their initial strategy wasn’t working.
The article is pretty straight forward. Perhaps because it’s about the mundane work and history behind it a lot of people here get nothing from it. That they just tried something and simply failed at delivering it. There is no big conspiratorial aspect to it or main thing to point at for blame. They just made a bad decision, had a bad idea from the get-go, tried to force it to work, it go to a point where they were scared to abandon it after committing so much time and effort to it and revealing it early, and finally just couldn’t any more as it wasn’t working out, at least the hero challenge portions of it.
I guess the bad thing was that they might have known they were screwed heading toward a dead end but still pushed for a launch. They could have just swapped over to F2P and 5v5 without the fanfare of calling it a sequel, maybe alluded to changing the PVE aspects earlier. Maybe they thought they could do it eventually or didn’t want to? I’d imagine that would be hard for some people to believe, particularly if they’re set on thinking it was all a strategy to scam out money.
Well, an interesting article. I do appreciate the apology. And I guess it is no real loss to me other than time and hopes (I personally did not spend money in OW2 for it). However, without early sneak peaks at what the PVE stuff looks like or what is to come, I can’t really expect much and have to keep expectations low. I can only hope they will commit more time and effort to at least improving the main PVP game.
And the cope begins. I am praying they add it to the Battle Pass. It would be so damn funny watching them do that after this and try to act like it should be praised
Harassing more women? Who knows… its blizzard after all. They renown for it.
I’m convinced that your “story modes” (archives, both junkenstiens, this new magic and mischief) can be made by 5 people in the workshop in under a week with the right assets. If these new missions come out just like these…… I’ll go play MW2’s raid missions… more storyline there In 6th months than we have got in…. Idk…. 4-5ish years?
how about making up for the canceled pve?
nothing like that was even mentioned if caring so much about delivering a good game.
There is nothing in this post that we did not already know.
This is not an explanation of what’s actually been done over the past 4 years.
This is not an explanation of how this “experience” is going to roll out or how /if it will continue to be present in the game once a season ends.
You needed to do a lot more with this “update” than clarify “the thing we cancelled is the thing we already said we cancelled” like we didn’t understand what was said the other day.
And on one last note, this one’s admittedly petty:
“A few days ago, we talked about our change in approach to PvE in Overwatch 2 and released a high-level roadmap for the year. We’re really excited for everything we’ll be launching soon”
Was not the opener this needed.
Are these good? Is this actually a Fun Thing To Do?
Guarantee itll be like 4 missions each no longer than 10 minutes and with less work and effort then StarWatch which frankly was a repetitive annoyance of a event that made my soul burn
Stop calling the chopped up, episodic nature of the story mode “PvE”, it’s a stretched out campaign mode. Also, you knew this was not going to be released for over a year and you knowingly withheld that information so people (myself included) would be invested in OW2 when you kicked everyone out of OW1.
I also do not see anything that it reassuring to the PvE community that is getting the short end of the stick. This can be a PvP game, but one that needs a lot of help right now. That being said, the fact you lied and hid information from from us, your customers, it horrible.
Lastly, I love how this is a triple xp weekend. Really trying to get people to move on from the fact the whole point of OW2 is a lie.
all im getting for these comments is people would rather another content drought for pve. yall are crazy this was definitely the right decision