Blizzard has revealed that Overwatch 2's canceled PvE Hero mode was originally designed to be a stepping stone toward a revival of sorts of Project Titan, the MMO canceled years ago from which Overwatch spawned.
Game director Aaron Keller writes in a new blog that Overwatch was "born from the ashes of Project Titan" and that the developers had planned to return to the scope of the MMO after it was shelved. More specifically, Keller says there was a three-part plan in place to eventually get to the point of releasing an MMO, starting with releasing Overwatch.
"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."
As the developers explained earlier this week, ultimately Overwatch 2's Hero mode was canceled simply because it was too ambitious for the studio to manage.
"We had an exciting but gargantuan vision and we were continuously pulling resources away from the live game in an attempt to realize it," adds Keller. "I can't help but look back on our original ambitions for Overwatch and feel like we used the slogan of 'crawl, walk, run' to continue to march forward with a strategy that just wasn't working."
The death of Overwatch 2's Hero mode hit players hard, with the decision's harshest critics why we ever needed a sequel in the first place. Blizzard has spent the days since its controversial announcement playing defense and pointing out that PvE will still exist in some form going forward - just not in its own dedicated mode. One Overwatch lead also shot down a rumor that the promised PvE mode was gutted due to a controversial policy change.
