A good example is FF14, it launched in an atrocious state. So what did the devs do? They admitted their mistakes and burnt the original one down and built it again from scratch. Did they name this title FF14-2? or FF15 (which tbf u can’t really do that with Final Fantasy Titles). No, the game relaunched as a 2.0 and did just fine.
My point is, I think OW2 wouldn’t be getting as much hate if it embraced its identity as a VERSION of OW, a new update. I genuinely think that it would be fine if they were honest with that the current OW has fallen off and admit that they’ve learnt from their mistakes by showing us similarly to how No Mans Sky redeemed itself.
The NMS devs didn’t try to resell us the same game, they built on the foundation on their faults to show the consumer that the title was in fact redeemable. If you’ve been following No Mans Sky, you know that it has by far flipped everyones post-launch expectations.
Blizzard/Activision may think that pushing Overwatch 2 as a sequel will bring more attention to the game… and they may be right, however most of the attention isn’t looking so positive.
that would be the most interesting development ever, I heard Jeff was similar in the idea that he wanted to block the higher-ups/corporate staff having too much influence on the game.
players arent going to come back to the game if its fundamentally NOT what it started off as
they’ve eliminated playstyles, this game is changing to grab a different audience, not the old one. it couldnt be more clearer when they’re taking the old game away completely
That’s why they’re using the Early Access title as a crutch.
Media: “This… This is it? This is your sequel??”
Blizzard: “No, no, no… This is just early access to the PvP portion of our sequel. The whole sequel includes the PvE.”
The game will remain in early access until the PvE is ready, only then will they consider the sequel as officially released.
We need to remember that the whole game, PvP and PvE, was supposed to release together, not just pvp alone. That’s why it was originally marketed as a sequel. But development took too long and they had to push forward the PvP launch, because, you know, profits are needed, which is what’s causing all the confusion around the 2 in the title.
Given that the pve is going to release episodically with seasons though at one point do we consider it “finished”?
Jeff Kaplan’s original vision for how the game would launch, or at least what we know of it, felt much more like a sequel. I feel like they have pivoted from that vision, but don’t want to pivot from the marketing. I don’t particularly blame them, but it just flat out does not have the air of a sequel, even when pve “launches.”
Of course, that might change when we know more about it, but we’ll see.
This is the worst part. There’s no way it’s that hard to freeze Overwatch 1 progression (since it’s carrying over to 2 officially) and still let people play the classic game. Overwatch 2 feels so different. I think they’re doing it because Blizzard wants to force people on the new f2p model and get more money out of them, especially with the battle passes. All around it’s so, so incredibly scummy.
They do not need the money I think. Its more the case of new people come in and said: “WHAT! They wait for 3 years now?! How did this happen!!” They mentioned that this came from the Fortnite guy that is new there so they decided 10 months ago “Ok lets put out PvP first for our current community”.
But no matter what they do people hate them for it. I for one thank them that they did not continue that way…
The sentiment is nice but I feel it is way too late to change it now. It should have been branded as a 2.0 version but even then people would just think that they’re changing the monetization to make money(which they’re literally doing anyways).
Also, OW did not need to be treated like FF14 at all, it hadn’t fallen off, the devs just abandoned it for greed, whether this was by choice or because evil Kotick told them to do so is up for debate though.
All Blizzard had to do was not lie for 3 years, not change the monetization to ruin an entire aspect of what makes the game fun for a lot of people, and just continue to build on the foundations of what made OW so good and so loved. Instead, they’re doing the complete opposite by taking away more than what they plan to give with OW2. If getting PvE meant having to lose the ability to own every skin then I don’t even want it anymore.
This was always, always, always going to be the case though - even if PVE and PVP launched at the same time. This is exactly what was announced at Blizzcon 2019.
I kind of have a problem with the word "patch’, purely because it’s a bit of a Ship of Theseus problem - just how much of the game engine do they need to change before they’re just swapping it out completely rather than patching it? I think of it as an update
The only change of plans here is that PVE is being launched later and, as a result, some of the corresponding PVP content (probably mostly maps) will be also.
I even have a thread from earlier this year (now full of outdated information - it was originally created before the early access release was announced) that described exactly this: What exactly is Overwatch 2? An explanation
I would say it depends on engine changes. If they rewrote the engine or made significant changes to the core it’s only fair to call it OW2. EA did this between Battlefront and Battlefront II, and the same engine was used for the new Battlefield releases.
New engine = new game or sequel.
Delivering big additions to PvE would also count. The key word being delivering. Not promising, delivering.
I doubt that finances had nothing to do with it. New game means a new start in terms of approaching monetization. Seasons make sense because they offer a more reliable source of income over microtransactions alone.
Going with early release was probably the best option, at least from their standpoint. Early adopters will invest and you get a bit of a money flow. You get data from end users and not just from inhouse testers. You get player feedback which can move or reshuffle short and mid term goals.
Please understand, small indie game developer has put the ‘2’ in preemptively. It’ll be a ‘2’ title once it’s out of early access and all of the features are done. Again, please understand. The development team is starving. They need to charge $45 a skin & can only release with 3 new heroes because game development is a huge challenge for such a small team.
The game had 3 years of no content. The naming alone wouldn’t have saved it no matter how it is called especially when it is offering less than the first game (5v5, removing modes just to return back to making maps and heroes with the same pace as before)
Stop pretending it is when 90% of it is OW1 assets.
You realize call of duty games have used the same assets and engines for 20 years? That doesn’t mean anything. Mass Effect 1, 2, 3, and Andromeda all had assets inherited from one game to the next, and kept the same engine till Andromeda.
Overwatch 2 literally built a new engine so that alone automatically makes it a new game.
To me, what they are doing seems fitting. It goes with the pattern of OW’s big changes.
People that bought OW to play wacky comps, like 1 Bastion 5 Mercys, 6 Lucios, and those, got pushed over to a side when they removed that from QP and Comp. Yes, you had that mode on arcade, but it’s not the same.
Then people that bought the game to play a less wacky version of the game, but that still allowed you to make drastic changes on your team by shifting from a role to another, got pushed over with roleQ. Same as before, it’s on arcade, but it is not the same.
This new change seems tame in comparison. It’s just the lastes version, but with one buffed up tank on each team, so less balance issues on that side.
I do agree OPs on that they shouldn’t have marketed this as plain ‘2’. This is not a sequel. It is a ‘big’ update.
