Overwatch 2 is placing an equal importance on PvE and PvP gameplay, offering complex upgrade trees and a full story campaign for fans to play alongside the hero shooter's popular multiplayer. It seems like the side missions in Overwatch 2 will be prevalent as well, as Blizzard has confirmed that it plans to deliver hundreds upon release.
In Overwatch 2’s PvE mode, there are hero mission and story missions. Story missions, as implied by the name, take players through a linear campaign. Each of these story missions takes place in a new play area, with in-game cutscenes at the beginning and end of every missions. Hero missions, on the other hand, are essentially side quests. Featuring minor story elements, a larger hero pool, and the game’s massive selection of multiplayer maps, these optional missions re-use assets in a clever way.
With hero missions set to be the place for PvE players to keep enjoying co-op levels and upgrading their Overwatch characters, it makes sense that Blizzard would go out of its way to provide plenty of these missions. However, it seems like the developer is going above and beyond, as there will be “hundreds” of missions to play inside the sequel. As detailed in the Behind The Scenes video for Overwatch 2, there are a few ways that these missions will be kept fresh enough for Blizzard to reach this astounding number of levels.
First, Overwatch 2 will feature a dynamic weather system, which will be used to diversify the locations of the missions. When hovering over a hero mission on the world map, players will be told if an area like Temple of Anubis is dealing with normal weather or in the middle of a sandstorm. As highlighted by Blizzard, specific heroes like Widowmaker and Hanzo help in this situation, as they can spot the enemies through the weather conditions. Nighttime, sunset, and sunrise variants of the maps will also be added, and new areas will be added to the PvE versions of classic maps like King’s Row.
Beyond just changing up the playable locations, hero missions will give players vastly groups of different Omnic enemies to fight — making two missions on the same map feel extremely different. Finally, different objectives will see players doing things like splitting up to collect items and bring them back to a hub area. Multiplayer objectives like escorts will be available as well, giving Blizzard a variety of pieces to mix and match to give players a huge amount of content.
While Overwatch 2 is likely far from release, it certainly looking as if it will be a promising sequel that satisfies fans of the original game whenever it finally arrives. For now, though, the community simply needs to wait until Blizzard is ready to talk about Overwatch 2 again.
Overwatch 2 is in development for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.