So, I absolutely love Overwatch lore. I own about seven books, I know the entire timeline by heart, and the story and characters mean so much to me. But when Blizzard laid off their story team and essentially abandoned PvE, I was devastated.
Now, I barely play the game unless it’s with friends, and it feels like I’m begging on the side of the street for any scraps of lore. I love this game so much, but it just feels like Blizzard doesn’t care about the story anymore.
Should I just quit at this point? Because it honestly feels hopeless.
The lore died when OW2 was born, at least in my opinion.
The prime example are the new Default skins, they have no part in the Story or Character development. The only reason they exist is marketing, to visually differentiate between Overwatch and OW2.
If they had cared about it, those skins would not have been introduced all at the same time, they would have been explained on why they have those all off a sudden.
Prime example for that are the Cassidy and D.Va skin, since both are in a comic series, leading up to OW2.
Cassidy is seen having his original skin and on the next, he suddenly has the OW2 one.
D.Va is using her original Mech and Suit the whole time. The team then flies of to Gibraltar. We then see that group in the Endscene of the Rio PvE Mission where she all of a sudden has the OW2 Suit and Mech.
This shows that they already did not really care even when they had the manpower.
The whole OW2 story is uninspired and not believable.
(How can Nullsector building a giant invasion army with dozens of giant Helicarriers, without nobody noticing anything.
What about the armies of the World? USA? China? NATO? etc.
The story of Overwatch should, in my opinion, focus on the conflict of Overwatch vs Talon, in a James Bond / Mission impossible style and not make World War 4 the setting.
same, but even the lore scraps do not even resonate with me. They are connection-less, random, unimportant. They introduced Magic into the World of Overwatch, they changed countless heros, inkl. Widowmaker, the hero I care about to the most.
There is ONE Voice Line in all of the Lore/Story since OW2 I resonate with, that gave me a glimmer of hope:
Mercy (about Widow): “I know she’s still in there. If I could just run some tests.”
but for you and also for me, it would be better if we let this game go.
i talked about my impression of what does NOT make this overwatch a “2”. but anyway… yes, the problem is that blizzard has a beautiful narrative creature but does not know how to manage it. in reality not even with wow can they really do it, but at least that has a historical basis that begins with a narrative saga that is easy to know in the first instance (warcraft 3, its story campaign).
but generally they are two blizzard franchises that live on “you want to know my lore? ”… silent… (community whisper to you: read the wikia)
I HATE that the only way to know the lore of Overwatch has to be to consult a wikia instead of a story mode, or any IN GAME narrative link (not even the website cares to arrange them chronologically, of course).
even a bioshock is not the most replayable thing in the world, but you have the way to know its story from beginning to end. the “pve” invasion of overwatch is not the most replayable thing in the world… and it’s just the demo of an incomplete story. that’s what not everyone liked, not so much the impossible replayability with bots or for the absence of players to play it in legendary mode.
I will always hate the developers / marketing department for not having simply imitated the only TRUE blizzard product that makes sense in its narrative because you can simply play it ALL in game: Starcraft. well even diablo, but i mostly point to starcraft because it’s a game whose success also depends on its esports half, just like overwatch. Except that overwatch got caught up in an absurdly expensive esports program without giving the real creative core that overwatch had to offer.
I think the whole story before “Recall” is better than everything after it. Omnic Crisis, Aurora, Iris, Blackwatch, Uprising, Gabriel leading OG Overwatch but not getting picked as leader once the crisis ends etc. Stuff like this could easily make it into a show. OW2 stuff? Nah because we haven’t seen much after recall that isn’t zero hour or comics. Meanwhile pre recall lore got a whole book on Amazon (Overwatch Declassified)
”… silent… (community whisper to you: read the wikia 
)