An Overwatch MMO was planned but is now scrapped, due to the recent cancellation of the Hero Missions PvE. It seems that the developers had some ambitious plans for the franchise but it looks like those are on hold, which is pretty disappointing.
Game director Aaron Keller revealed that the PvE would have been a tease for something more, which would have eventually led to the MMO. Keller confirmed that their original vision for Project Titan was a first-person shooter MMO and Hero Missions would have carried that idea.
Here’s what Keller had to say about the Overwatch MMO:
"Overwatch was the crawl, a dedicated version of PvE was the walk, and an MMO was the run," Keller states. "It was built into the DNA of the team early on, and some of us considered that final game a true realization of the original vision of Project Titan."
It’s sad to see these ambitious plans getting scrapped, especially since it makes Overwatch 2 a pretty pointless sequel. Now that these ambitious plans have been scrapped, this game is just a slightly prettier version of Overwatch 1 but with worse microtransactions. That’s saying a lot since Overwatch popularized loot boxes and practically ruined gaming.
Obviously, this won’t be killing the Overwatch franchise, as the sequel still has a strong fanbase who adore the gameplay and characters. Players will always come back to see what the newest character looks like or what kind of skins will be added. It’s just a shame that this series won’t be evolving anytime soon.
Still, we would love to see Activision Blizzard do something else with these characters and an Overwatch MMO would have been fun to see. Right now, these characters only have their story progress through comic books or animated shorts, while the game just makes them blast all of their friends. The MMO would have given them a chance to stand out more.
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Overwatch 2 is now available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC.