It is no secret that OWL is very likely over. However what does that mean for Overwatch?
Sadly when this happened with Heroes of The Strom, the game went into maintenance mode.
I really want to say this would not happen with Overwatch since there is still money to be made with it. Yet you never know with Activision.
HotS only went into maintenance mode because they couldn’t compete with LoL and other MOBAs. Overwatch has barely any competition and they’re still dominating the sub-genre. So most of the money from this sub-genre is going to them. Overwatch will stay the same.
It’s a much different situation. HotS was like their 6th most popular IP, Overwatch is the 2nd
OWL was basically losing them money, a lot.
If anything, it means they will probably focus on maximizing the numbers of players in the game.
Rather than catering primarily to 0.01% of the players.
(And losing large fractions of the overall playerbase in the process)
Not exactly, I followed that game very closely. HotS only failed to compete with another now more famous MOBA competitor (LoL), but it was undoubtedly a niche MOBA still interesting to many people. They worked hard on the reworks after the cancellation of the tournaments but the professionals didn’t return because they didn’t trust Blizzard who had closed their tournament suddenly (unlike OWL which had been rumored for at least 2 years that it had to be ended). HotS’s problem was the total lack of consistency in quality, and the Blizzard corporate scandals gave it the final blow to be left without developers and players. They had already stopped releasing maps some time ago, while for the heroes there was the disorientation of proposing new ones. 
OVerwatch… It’s NOT like HotS. its business status is much more live service in promising new maps and heroes cyclically throughout the year. Even the season system is a bit of a “promise” that the game cannot remain without events. The problem, however, is that he managed his promises very badly with the development work, and the result is a zombie that keeps repeating “it will come, have patience” (like the mastery hero itself or the PVE released in the last two months). OW2 still has hope, but the difference is that this time it’s not the pro-p’layuers who don’t trust the game… but the entire community who have seen the promises made in the past retracted, passing off 5v5 as the new thing of oW2 (wrong, it was the LORE). We can only wait for further developments.
for now we can be “quiet” about the fact that without the OWL, there is no longer any e-sports machine from which to make money. and it’s up to the game to prove that it’s worth a few dollars of Activision’s salary, not the visuals that will no longer be there. HotS for obvious reasons couldn’t work in its lootboxing in F2P, but OW today works with a Battle pass monetization. Very improvable, it’s true, but still a more profitable F2P source of income for blizzard itself. it is the marketing blizzard that has to be very careful with the patience/tolerability of the users. In short: Overwatch 2 must now deserve its pay for what it is, not for the visuals e.-sport it makes. 
WHEN should we seriously worry?: for now a new map and a new hero await us. We’ll have to be careful if 2024 starts showing the exact same signs that brought OW1 to a halt. More precisely, fewer map releases, greater reluctance to give events with a theme (which OW2 hasn’t done so far, with the exception of the “wildcard” excuse represented by the anniversary), less certainty about the release of next heroes and… well, the time they take to tell us about the next PVe. they told us that we won’t have the next chapter in 2023? and so from 2024 it’s a priority to have news on what happened to that project at least by the first half of 2024. no, I’m not there anymore excuses, they have to help this PVE which is also part of the monetization of OW2.
We are… demoralized. understandably pessimistic 
. But as long as we know for now that we are waiting for a new map, a new seaosn pass with theme (already leaked online) and a new tank we are still within the confines of the stable live service duty that OW2 should be.
exactly, it was already a loss-making business as of 2022. Even the participating teams very often complained about the fees and debts that were created. it was right that it ended now (but also before, in reality). This also reflects the unpopularity that OW has had in recent years
just saying lol teams complaining about the same for years… doesn’t matter (yet)
OWL being gone won’t do anything to the game’s viability. Nobody was playing OW2 because of OWL. If OW2 can sustain an esports scene, it will grow organically among the players themselves - like most competitive scenes.
in world of worcraft there is a owl name balan druid maybe he could be the new hero for ovenwatch