Blizzard’s Overwatch re-launch has been a resounding success. The shift back to the game’s original name has seen an increase in content releases and player counts, although this has come at the expense of the second game’s PvE mode.
While Blizzard has been inspired by the success of Marvel Rivals to increase the pace of updates for Overwatch, it’s also not jumping into the realm of countless new modes like its NetEase competitor. Overwatch is clearly more focused on its core mode, whereas Rivals has plans to turn into a “moving Marvel anime experience”.
Nevertheless, in a discussion at a press Q&A, game director Aaron Keller explained that there is a possibility that an Overwatch PvE mode could release in the future. The game director realises just how much hype there was for the game’s scrapped co-operative mode, and there’s a certain desire to fulfil that eventually.
“When you look at the campaign that we ran, I think that, while there was a lot of excitement there and it did drive the story forward, it didn’t really get played out the way that we wanted it to,” Keller said. (Thanks, The Gamer.)
However, if a PvE mode does arrive, it won’t be to the same cinematic scale of the studio’s original plans. When asked if PvE experiences could drop, Keller responded with “I wouldn’t discount it”. But to bring PvE to the game with the same cinematic flair and budget of the scrapped mode? Well, that doesn’t sound feasible.
For Overwatch to add in a full campaign experience like the team wanted to, Keller explained that it would need to be “a whole new game” created by a new team. That was the plan for Overwatch 2, a plan that never came to fruition, and it doesn’t seem like Blizzard would be eager to repeat that mistake all over again.
With that said, it does feel like Keller and others seemingly still have some remnants of that PvE experience in their minds. The mode’s original announcement was interesting, many fans were looking forward to it, and it looked like it was finally going to expand on the game’s intriguing universe. It would be nice to see something like that again, even if it’s just for the novelty.
Overwatch is available as a free-to-play game on PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series.
