Wildfire rumors are going around a whole new game based in the Overwatch franchise is in development. To help ensure information is not getting skewed I will maintain a list of news about this subject and what is confirmed and what is hearsay.
CONFIRMED BY BLIZZARD
Blizzard has issued a general statement about the cancellation of the unannounced projects (see below).
Click here for Blizzard's Statement
We don’t generally comment on unannounced projects but we will say the following:
We always have people working on different ideas behind the scenes – including on multiple projects right now – but the reason we tend not to discuss them publicly is because anything can happen over the course of development. As has been the case at Blizzard numerous times in the past, there is always the possibility that we’ll make the decision to not move forward on a given project. Announcing something before we feel it’s ready stands the risk of creating a lot of frustration and disappointment, both for our players and us, not to mention distraction and added pressure for our development teams.
We pour our hearts and souls into this work, and as players ourselves, we know how exciting it can be to see and know with certainty that a new project is coming. Knowing that changes or disappointments can happen doesn’t make it any less painful when we have to shelve a project or when an announcement doesn’t go as planned. We always make decisions about these things, regardless of the ultimate outcome or how things might be interpreted, based on our values, what we believe makes sense for Blizzard, and what we hope our players will enjoy the most. The work that goes into these projects – whether they ship or not – is extraordinarily valuable. It often leads to great things and helps foster a culture of experimentation here.
With all that said, we’re very much looking forward to revealing other things we’re working on when the time is right.
NEWS SOURCES REPORTING
Multiple news sources have reported that Blizzard Entertainment has CANCELLED a planned First-Person Shooter based of the StarCraft IP.
This was in development for two years.
The team behind the project codenamed “Ares” was axed with NO direct layoffs (however some team members are reported to have left Blizzard at their own decision to pursue other opportunities). All personnel from the Ares Team has been diverted to other projects including “Diablo 4” and “Overwatch 2”
Project “Ares” apparently used the same game engine that Overwatch uses
An “unannounced mobile project” was also canceled. There are no details to what IP that project was under (if any existing).
News sources and a tweet from the original article’s author report that “Overwatch 2” is primarily going to be a PVE based game. This likely means this game is going to be a “spin-off” title from the core PVP game.
Announcements for this project in development is expected to be announced during BlizzCon 2019.
UNCONFIRMED AND HEARSAY
Overwatch 2 will replace Overwatch - This is pure speculation with no evidence of confirmation.
I hope this list provides clarification on what is known and what is mere rumor. This is going to be a very tense time for the next few months so I will try to sort out information as I see it. Realistically, consider any news of a new Overwatch game as unconfirmed at this time and we will have to wait until BlizzCon for any real news.
I will note, that I will be attending BlizzCon again this year. So I will very likely have a good chance to learn more if any announcements are made then. Cheers! (^^)v
I wouldn’t say “multiple news sources have reported”. Only one news source has specifically reported about both the cancellation and “Ovewratch 2”, and that’s Kotaku where these rumors are originating from.
All the other news outlets are basically reporting about Kotaku’s report. Some guy on the forum linked their articles without actually reading them thinking they were independently confirming Kotaku’s report, which they weren’t, the other news sites were just reporting about Kotaku’s report because it’s newsworthy despite their not having corroborated it themselves.
I would totally purchase a spinoff that’s just hours of story and NEW PVE content for every hero. It would be nice if it involved unlocking lore based skins that can carry over to the main game.
This would assume the same team (Jeff Kaplan and the rest of team 4) is working on the new project. If it is a new team, then expect a whole new game. This is information we don’t have but given that we have a surge of new features lately (Workshop, Replays). It could very well be an independent game.
BlizzCon is Blizzard’s formal announcement platform (they don’t appear at E3 and cancelled their appearance at Gamescom this year). Again, this is not necessarily the same team so the past silence is not a viable indication of things to come.
Exactly. This is currently working really well for Fortnite. Personally, it’s a welcome addition in my book. I’ve always preferred the PvE aspects of it and really like story based campaigns and the like.
More Overwatch for all is a good thing, guys! It means they’ve not given up on it and they’ve got plenty more to share with us.
