This was the announcement back then: At BlizzCon 2019, Blizzard announced the shooter Overwatch 2. And the first reaction was a collective, “Huh?”

Hardly anyone at the time really understood what that was all about:

Because Overwatch 2 looked kind of just like Overwatch only with “Now there’s PvE missions too!” We at MeinMMO said at the time: This sounds more like a DLC than a new game.

Well, something Blizzard probably had to do: in 2019, Overwatch had lost a bit of its early days luster. In 2016 and 2017, Overwatch was still celebrating enormous success. The shooter could always inspire with new heroes and stories. It held the interest of the gaming community for years, but in 2018 Fortnite had drawn a lot of attention away from Overwatch.

So something had to happen with Overwatch in 2019 – but a part 2?

What made the announcement difficult back then? It wasn’t clear exactly what Overwatch 2 was going to bring. There was no push behind it that Blizzard fans would have wanted a “New Overwatch” now.

While other Blizzard series were aging and in desperate need of a refresh, like Diablo or StarCraft, Overwatch was only 3 years old at the time and had strong years behind it.

In addition, Overwatch was supposed to function as an e-sports title and be constantly developed. A part 2 just seemed weird.

Overwatch is almost at a standstill since 2019

What has happened in Overwatch since then? Almost nothing. One Twitter user sums it up harshly:

While comparable games have evolved rapidly over the 2 years, almost nothing has happened with Overwatch. The game was a cash cow for Blizzard from 2016 to 2018, with bubbling sources of revenue via skins, regular highlight updates that brought new heroes, and an e-sports league that sold expensive seats.

The e-sports league lost much of its luster during the Corona era. It fell out with the casters and lost some of its most important players to the new competitor Valorant.

In addition, Overwatch’s icon, dad Jeff Kaplan, is now also an “ex-Blizzard” developer.

Overwatch developers contradict 2023 as official release date

And what about Overwatch 2? Also almost nothing. That’s what’s so frustrating. Since BlizzCon 2019, little has been heard of Overwatch 2.

The latest news was that the game would not be released in 2022, as originally planned.

When some then concluded that it would be released in 2023, the team put a hard damper on it: Nobody would have ever said that. There would be no more official release date (via blizzard-forums).

On the one hand, this sounds as if Overwatch is still uncertain even for 2023 and they are rather aiming for 2024, but it could also mean that 2022 is not completely off the table. The situation is just uncertain.

An e-sports title in maintenance mode

This is the state now: It’s a strange development at Blizzard. They actually stopped the development of a well-running game that was floundering, with the promise to release the same game again with some changes.

However, the timing of when this second game will come keeps getting pushed back, while the original game gradually crumbles and loses relevance to them.

Blizzard put a lot of time and energy into Overwatch to build a community there that was passionate about the heroes, and wanted to make an e-sports title out of Overwatch that was world-class. But since 2019, it seems like Overwatch is only running in maintenance mode – and an Overwatch 2 still seems as far away as it was 2 years ago.

The announcement to postpone Overwatch 2 did not go down well with Activision Blizzard investors:

WoW, CoD: Activision Blizzard makes $1.2 billion in cash in 3 months – stock falls 13%