When Blizzard announced that the sequel to Overwatch would include a PvE element and a story campaign, I began to think that Overwatch 2 would be a significant change in the experience. In the aftermath of this announcement, however, the team hero shooter only suffered more and more deviations from what fans could expect from the sequel.
Not only is PvE separate from PvP mode, but Overwatch 2 is now making the transition to free play, becoming a live service title that Blizzard hopes to maintain with a seasonal structure, new business model and roadmap of content like Overwatch never has. he did not.
Overwatch 2: The great interview
Currently playing: Overwatch 2: The Great Interview
GameSpot spoke with Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller about the big changes coming into the game. We discussed the current state of the Overwatch development team and how it has adapted to meet the needs of a much more demanding seasonal and free-to-play model, as well as the rationale for removing loot boxes from the game. In our conversation, Keller delves into the new character, Junker Queen, who is one of three new characters to join Overwatch 2 with Sojourn and a mysterious third supporting character at the launch of the game in October.
It was a bit of a challenge on many fronts to get Overwatch 2 where it is now. What is the mood of the team during all these years of development and getting out of the alpha?
Aaron Keller: This is a really exciting time for the team. Overwatch launched six years ago in 2016 and we released game updates. But this October, when we release Overwatch 2, it will be the biggest update we’ve ever released for Overwatch. There will be new characters, new maps, new game modes and a completely redesigned PvP system. For us, we’ve been working on this for so long, for years, without really being able to show it to the public – this is a moment that the team can now focus on and get really, really excited about. So to present the game to the public and have an actual start date of the game is really exciting for us.
You described it as releasing an update to the game and there has been a lot of discussion about Overwatch 2 being a significant update. How do you think of Overwatch 2 as it is now, given that you presented it in a way that is now different from the original terrain?
We’re doing things with Overwatch 2 that would be difficult to do without the context of a sequel. We are redesigning the PvP experience for Overwatch; we move from team format 6 to 6 to team format 5 to 5 – removes one of the tanks from the composition. We also introduce passive roles for each character, reworking and modifying many of the characters in the game, [and] remove the ability to control the crowd from the game.
I think Overwatch has some magic when you play it – it has this modjo. It’s just great to play it. And we can move all that forward, but at the same time Overwatch 2 feels like something fresh and something new. And I think it’s easier to do something like that in the context of a sequel.
On top of that, this is the biggest update we’ve ever released for the game. A lot of new things come out in October with new characters and new maps. We have a new competitive system ahead of us and much more to come. So by providing free play with Overwatch, we’re not just giving people a different way to interact with the game; the development team itself thinks about the way we create and release content in a whole new way. The amount of content needed to run a free game with live service is an order of magnitude more than what it takes to launch something that you put in a box and sell. So the whole Overwatch team [has] completely restructured and expanded. It’s over three times bigger than when we started the original game, and it’s structured in such a way that we can work on the launch stuff at the same time [for] the rest of this year, but also next year.
I think this is also a change in the way we think about releasing large parts of the game. So instead of just developing things and keeping them, and then combining them to put them in a box, we now commit to letting them go when they’re ready and doing so in the long run. We are still working on all the PvE parts of Overwatch 2 that we have always planned for it, but now instead of putting them in a box, we will release them as part of our seasonal rhythm. I know there’s a lot here, but it’s really a demarcation point for Overwatch, where the way we create and play content is different. And even the way we think and run the game is different. So I think that justifies putting 2 after Overwatch.
Let’s take a step back and talk about the alpha. We read the big blog post with all the statistics, but which is the biggest statement from the team?
So Overwatch 2 Alpha, we launched it earlier this year and quickly followed suit with our first beta. It was really interesting, but also very encouraging. This was the first time we got the audience to release our new 5v5 format and it’s a different way of playing Overwatch. The game is a little faster, each player has more freedom of movement in the cards, [and] there are fewer players to stop you. Many times you feel like you have a little more players. You can do more, [and] you have a little more potential to even help carry your team if you want. We’ve been playing this inside for a long time and we thought it was great, but there may be a bias for confirmation. You do not always know that the public will have the same opinion.
So the thing that encouraged us was that we felt that the people playing the alpha version and the people playing the beta thought there were a lot of promise and a lot of potential to run the game that way. We even heard feedback afterwards that it was quite a shocking experience to move from playing Overwatch 2 back to Overwatch 1 and most people seemed to prefer [where] we had taken the game. There are definitely things to work on – that’s why this is a beta version. This is a time when we can take all the feedback that people give us and turn it into useful changes in the game.
One of the great reviews we received was that we just felt that our support characters were a little weaker, so that’s something we took to heart. We are making many changes and experiments internally and we hope that they will be introduced in the next beta version. And as we continue to run this next beta, we will make more changes to it.
I guess it’s worth reiterating what your key goals were when moving from Overwatch to Overwatch 2, and has it changed now that Overwatch 2 has become something completely different from where you started?
We have a few values to keep in mind as we develop Overwatch 2. One of them, and that’s one of the things that has somewhat led to the move to free gaming, is that we want to keep our community together. as we can. So, instead of releasing another box that players will have to buy to get involved in the experience, we prefer to open the game to the widest possible population. Overwatch [is] a universe that welcomes everyone and we want people to be able to play with as many friends as they want. Overwatch is a game of teamwork, collaboration and strategy and we believe it is best played in a social environment with your friends. We hope that removing the price as a barrier to entry is a way for you to play with more of your friends and have a better gaming experience.
How has the change in vision and the transition to free play affected development and how has the Overwatch team adjusted?
The move to free play is a big change for the team and for the game. The amount of content you need for a free service is simply greater than what you need for a different type of game. We plan each of our seasons to be approximately nine weeks long and each of these seasons to have much more content than we have ever delivered seasonally before. Doing something like this is a huge undertaking and really requires a lot of organization and a lot of focus from the team to do it. So we grew the team, we restructured the team to do that.
On the other hand, I think Overwatch is something of a unique game. It really is based on the characters that are in it. People fall in love with our characters and we are constantly adding more to the game. I think that in order for people to have a hero and then want to be able to engage with him in cosmetics, a lot more cosmetics are needed than we were able to build before. Moving on to this type of model, where we create a lot more of these things, I think it actually fits in very well with the type of game we have and the number of characters we have in it.
The last thing we want to do is invest all our resources in developing this version for October 4 and then everyone on the team will burn out and everyone will want to take a break. October is the beginning of Overwatch 2 – this is the beginning of a new era for the game. And that really marks the moment when we need to start releasing more and more content for players. And that’s why we need to structure a team that can work on many different pieces of content at once; many different seasons. This is not just cosmetic content, but characters, maps, game modes, new features and systems, new game events. Being able to do all this for several seasons, all at the same time, is quite a huge change for us to be able to actually achieve this. I have the feeling that last year this was something we managed to do as a team. We really …
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