Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller and executive producer Jared Neuss revealed earlier this week that the PvE Hero mode, which was one of the most anticipated aspects of the live shooter sequel, was cancelled. Players were extremely disappointed with the news, and now on Friday, Keller has uploaded a new blog post, personally apologizing for the cancellation, while providing a bit more of a detailed timeline on how the decision was eventually made.Keller spoke about how the team first began to work on Overwatch after their last project was cancelled by Blizzard, and how the team was working through the development and success of Overwatch with a mindset that Keller ultimately saw as dated and a negative approach.“After Overwatch 2 had launched, we started refining our plans for future seasons. As those plans grew, we tried to find ways to make all of our ambitions fit together in a plan that we believed in.We couldn’t. And we also knew that we couldn’t go back to pulling people away from the live game in service of that original vision again. So, we made the difficult decision to cut Hero Missions and started planning for the future…This has been hard for us, but as the director on this project, I have to do my best to make decisions that put the game and the community first, even when those decisions are disappointing.In this case, I had trouble pivoting away from a vision that just wasn’t working. And for that I would like to apologize to our players and to our team. I’m sorry.”While this statement provides little consolation to fans who were anxiously awaiting the release of the Hero mode, it is good to see Keller take responsibility and apologize himself.Big decisions like this are not made in a vacuum, and though the process of game development is an unpredictable one, it ultimately falls on the leadership to plan things out, and then ensure those plans are executed properly.The buck has to stop somewhere, and it’s good to see Keller own up, especially when this is a decision which has the potential to dramatically effect the Overwatch franchise and its community in the long-term.Source – [Blizzard]
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