Are Overwatch 2’s PVE Story Missions cancelled? Ex-Blizzard employees chime in

Overwatch 2’s PvE story missions were reportedly held back by Blizzard executives, with ex-devs fearing it has been completely abandoned, but is that the case? Here’s what we know about the future of PvE content in OW2. 

Overwatch 2’s PvE has endured a long and tumultuous road. Despite some content finally seeing the light of day in August 2023, it still arrived with much controversy.

And after seven months with no new PvE story missions, a report from Kotaku interviewing ex-Blizzard devs, has now indicated that much of its development was hampered by executives. 

In the report, many of the ex-devs feared that their work would never be released despite wanting it to stand beside the competitive game. So with the new report in tow, here is an explainer on whether Overwatch 2 PvE is still coming out. 

Blizzard

Overwatch 2 PvE feared by ex-devs to be cancelled

According to the ex-Blizzard devs Kotaku spoke to in their report, much of the problems with Overwatch 2’s PvE release came down to Blizzard executives hampering its pipeline. 

According to one dev, Blizzard executives and leadership members kept asking the devs if what they were working on was “Blizzard quality”, which resulted in delays. 

“[Blizzard Quality] is a justification to essentially piss about forever and ever redoing the same work over and over,” the source said. “Some executive goes, ‘Hm, but is it Blizzard quality?’ It’s always leadership or game directors, deciding they need to spend the extra time. So honestly, if they could have just made any kind of decisions, the game would have shipped years ago.”

Blizzard

Additionally, the ex-devs also shed light on the fact that it was “very difficult” to adapt Overwatch’s PvP hero kits for PvE, among other problems. 

Compounded with the recent rounds of layoffs Blizzard faced in early 2024, which saw a majority of the PvE team let go, it has caused a lot of concern from the ex-devs if their work will ever be released. 

Is Overwatch 2 PvE cancelled? 

It’s uncertain if PvE has well and truly been canceled internally at Blizzard, however, publicly, it has not. 

Despite the concerns of the people who worked on it, Overwatch 2’s Executive Producer Jared Neuss still revealed to players what was coming for PvE in 2024 towards the end of last year. 

“We’re going to keep experimenting, move lore into those experiences to give people who love the story more reason to be excited, but we also want to try these other things that are smaller, replayable things that give a very different experience,” Neuss said of PvE. 

So it seems there may be PvE story missions coming in 2024, however, anything beyond this year is unknown.