Streamer SVB interviewed Executive Producer Jared Neuss today. There wasn’t a full summary of this anywhere so I made one.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGgVFUlQ_7k
Topics covered:
- Mythics - They’re making adjustments to future mythic skins based on the feedback to the customization on Orisa and Hanzo.
- Winter Fair - The team was surprised to initial negative feedback to the Winter Fair, but thinks it might turn around once people actually get to play it. They are still deciding if there will be more event passes in the future and how they will work. He forgets whether they plan to make the winter fair skins available for separate purchase
- Unlocking Heroes - They were naïve to assume that it was possible to get the game to a state where having the ability to counter swap to more heroes wouldn’t be highly advantageous. As a result, he would like for “every single player to be able to experience the [new] hero on the day the season drops” and believes they will get there, but can’t share the details yet. They also might be changing the process for unlocking older heroes. They still want to have some kind of system in place to ease players into the games large hero roster without being overwhelmed
- Quickplay - Leaver penalty is needed because OW is a team game and leavers really hurt the game for the other 9 players in the lobby, but they still plan on making more adjustments to the exact penalties in future seasons. Quickplay is the most popular mode with more players than competitive, and is considered equal to comp in terms of “What overwatch is”. The main difference between the two modes is that comp is meant for players who want high stakes, while arcade is meant to be the place for very casual type gameplay.
- 2023 - Going into 2023 the team’s plans were pretty chaotic, but they believe they found their rhythm and have a clearer direction going into 2024
- Overwatch’s Competitors - Overwatch has a unique niche and doesn’t really have a direct competitor. He thinks different games should exist and stand on their own merits and that Overwatch is doing well. After the subject of twitch viewership came up, he mentioned off-hand that there are specifically 2 “pretty big things” coming next year (he was about to cite them as examples before realizing that he couldn’t) that could be breakout viral moments for the game
- Biggest Successes and Failures - While some specific successes included Illari’s launch and LE SSERAFIM crossovers, big picture wise the biggest success was how much the team grew and improved over the past year, though he admits that’s a boring answer. Biggest failure was doing “grand reveals” with new content where they’d keep features mostly secret and then just suddenly reveal them and put them into the game shortly after without any previews of feedback. For example, they did this with the hero progression system. Thinks Mauga is a good model for how they should handle big features in the future
- Crossovers - a bunch of collaborations are planned for next year across multiple entertainment mediums. They would like to do collaborations with other video games in the future
- Steam - While the negative reviews weren’t great to see, the steam launch was still a success. It brought in a lot of new players and allowed some existing players to transfer to their preferred platform
- PvE - PvE will remain a smaller more infrequent part of the game, and they are still experimenting with different types of PvE through modes like Hero Mastery and Trials of Sanctuary to see what works. They want to try more like that in the future, including introducing lore into some of these side modes and trying out smaller replayable experiences
- Workshop - While not their main focus, they still want to add more to it and make it more stable and user friendly. They want to do more events like Demon Lord Reinhardt mode where they integrate community made modes into the live game. No plans for anything crazy like a full map editor with scripted events unless the demand improves
- Overwatch as a Franchise - The have a lot of big ideas for external media for the game (e.g. the short animated series from earlier this year), but have to keep everything secret for now
- Console - Console is a massive part of the playerbase that has grown in OW2. They are aware of cheating/ximming and have plans to fight it, but can’t go into detail so that the cheat makers have as little information as possible. They want to improve usability on console, like making certain menus more streamlined
- 2024 - They’re going to release more information about 2024 “at the beginning of the year.” Reminds us that most features we see in game were in development for over 6 months, so what we see at the start of next year will be in response to observations made early in this year. In addition to reworks to competitive and other big systems, they plan on a lot more experimentation with the core game next year, with respawn waves being an example of the type of feature they’d like to try more of
It’s right around the corner surely!
