Overwatch 2 Director Aaron Keller discusses how the shooter franchise was “born from the ashes of Project Titan” following the cancellation of Hero Mode.
Earlier this week, Blizzard made the surprise announcement that Overwatch 2 would no longer get its PvE hero mode, which was arguably the main reason why it even justified having a sequel. PvE content is still planned to appear in the game in the form of story missions, but the heroic mode has been axed. Following up on this news, Keller is now sharing his latest “Director’s Take,” a series of regular blog posts he shares covering the state of the game, in which he talks about how the Overwatch team is struggling after the cancellation of an MMO called Project Titan. Unite to develop the ultimate goal of shooting MMO.
According to Keller, “the Overwatch team, especially at its inception, considered itself an MMO development team” because it “was formed after Blizzard canceled a game called Project Titan… when we moved from When the original concept shifted and started creating Overwatch, we had a plan to return to that range one day. We had crawl, walk, run plans. Overwatch was crawling, the dedicated version of PvE was walking, and the MMO It’s running. It’s built into the DNA of the team early on, and some of us feel that the final game truly fulfills the original vision of Project Titan.”
Over time, Keller explained, “the scope expanded” when it came to hero mode, and the team “tried to do too many things at once.” As the team began planning for future seasons, it became clear they couldn’t incorporate Heroic Mode into the future of the game, and ultimately decided to cancel it, Keller wrote, “As director of the project, I had to do everything in my power to make the future of the game better.” Decisions that put the game and the community first, even when those decisions are disappointing.”
It sounds like the team eventually wants to make something like Destiny, which itself is a bit of an oddity in the MMO scene, and has had more success with the sequel than with the first game.
While the hero mode has been axed, Overwatch season 6 will introduce story missions, although a release date for the season has yet to be announced.
