Jeff Kaplan: “I have a feeling we’ll be talking about Overwatch 2 again next year at BlizzCon. If that helps.”

[LowParry]

Just because the game was planned months before the HK situation doesn't mean it can't be a distraction to make people overlook Blizzard's wrong doing.

Or is that kind of talk not allowed?

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So here's been Blizzards game plan for the last year:

1) Let's piss off our audience with Diablo Immortal
2) Time settles and most folk move on, hoping that next year's Blizzcon will be better
3) Just in case we run into any more trouble, we better make special plans in the making (or like always, announce games that are 3+ years out)
4) Oopsie!
5) Break open those plans, we got a couple of weeks to make it right

See where this is going and how dumb is sounds?

Hate Blizzard all you want but using the "But here's D4!" announcement as a deflection of the Hong Kong situation is 100% wrong.

 

[New Donker]

Cool, I'll be putting a lot of time into the Switch version and can't wait for this expansion.

 

[Komo]

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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lmao come on do you know how difficult it is to put out 2, 10 minute CGI in 1-2 months?

 

[Parenegade]

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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Jesus Christ...

 

[Bossman]

Releasing it so late is a weird decision. The playerbase has already declined quite a bit so they really need to do something right now or the game is going to be a ghost town when OW2 is finally relased.

 

[Nome]

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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Hong Kong was planned to distract people from Overwatch 2's release date

 

[Parenegade]

I don't get it ? Overwatch 2 is basically an addon, pretty much every asset is already done, why would they need two years ?

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If OW2 has multiple new characters, maps, and a full blown story mode how the hell would it use the same assets?

 

[SirNinja]

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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Oh yeah, they totally made those playable demos + lengthy CG trailers for Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 in less than a month. Easy peasy.

 

[Vic Damone Jr.]

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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Doesnt matter but it worked to perfection.

 

[Messi]

If OW2 has multiple new characters, maps, and a full blown story mode how the hell would it use the same assets?

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People don't know how game development works.

 

[asd202]

WoW expansion 2020, Overwatch 2021, Diablo 2022.

 

[boy power]

Whether or not OW2 is released before or after Blizzcon 2020, we'll obviously hear about it in Blizzcon, no? So the optimist in me is just hoping he said that to confuse people, so that people are trying to read it as he implying that the game won't release before next year's Blizzcon. I will not have it if OW1 is going to remain a dud while Blizz works on OW2 for who knows how long. A whole year of minimum amount of new content, just new lame skins, nothing else? Get out with that nonsense.

 

[Symphony]

Explains why it currently looks like OW1 with a new Uprising mission and tweaked UI, if they're still so far out.

 

[Metto]

I honestly would wager they announced OW2 so they can reduce updates on OW1 and have a good reason why.

The post launch of OW had been very formulaic and less exciting while the game was in dire need of something new. So promising something new on the horizon before they slow down updates is a solid plan otherwise if they didn't show off OW2 but slowed down support it would've reflected badly on the game and brand.

 

[Kyle Cross]

If it's going to be this long, they better damn well upgrade the graphics. The Overwatch artstyle is solid, but graphical quality needs to be bumped up past what's in OW1.

 

[jeelybeans]

Either way. Stupid to announce stuff early because you had a shitty mobile conference last year where your own fans were disappointed on a live stream for everyone to see.

 

[Maximo]

This BlizzCon to me was also bad alot of stuff still super early in development when last year's BlizzCon was garbage.

 

[Ambient80]

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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I love how Blizzard is simultaneously incompetent at making their own games, and yet able to put four trailers (three of which were very detailed CGI), four major announcements, and two playable demos together within a month without much of a hitch.

Seriously, what a ridiculous line of thinking.

 

[Forsaken82]

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Oh look, someone finally said it!

Oh wait... several posters have been saying this very thing for the last several days, weeks if you include the time since the leaks. But let's not listen to random posters who are thinking more rationally than the boycotters who simply can't accept that maybe this was actually a response to the poor Diablo immortal reception and not your tinfoil hat conspiracies.

 

[T.Rex In F-14]

What happens to Overwatch in between? Does Push get released? Any new heroes or maps? Or will it just be Echo and some balancing until 2 is ready? Hard to believe the game will go dark until 2 releases but I suppose the updates have slowed the past year already.

 

[Deleted member 51691]

I hope they take their time on Overwatch 2. I think they'll need more than what they showed this weekend to justify charging for a sequel.

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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To distract from last year's fiasco ("Do you guys not have phones?") and recent internal shifts at Blizzard (layoffs and Activision's growing influence), but the Blitzchung thing happening before Blizzcon this year ended up working out for Blizzard.

 

[DealWithIt]

Blizzcon is dead, long live Disney+

(Does anybody know if blizzard did this because of the HK debacle?)

 

[morrigan8bit]

So, overwatch 2 is cross gen game confirmed it seems.

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Potentially nextgen as OW will allow current gen owners who haven't made the jump to engage with the new heroes and maps.

 

[morrigan8bit]

Blizzcon is dead, long live Disney+

(Does anybody know if blizzard did this because of the HK debacle?)

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I think the answer is no. Playable build and cg trailer can't be rustled up with a month. Plus OW2 leaks appearing at Blizzcon emerged long before the HK PR disaster.

If anything it's a reaction to last years disappointing event.

 

[Falchion]

No surprise but I guess they just wanted to announce it so people feel fine still dumping money into skins since they'll transfer over.

 

[8byte]

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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Is this a serious post?

The real reason is probably dependent on two factors. First, they really want to slow down development for OW1 and focus on OW2, and they're going to have to pull a lot of the team away from that game. This means we likely won't get a new archives mission in 2020, because all of those people will be working on OW2.

Second, and most likely, is that they'd planned to do this as far back as 2018, because that Blizzcon was fairly disappointing, so they wanted more bombshell reveals (even if they did all get leaked).

 

[RecRoulette]

They'll be talking about Overwatch 2 at the next 4-5 Blizzcons I'd assume.

I can't tell if the folks thinking the Overwatch 2 reveal was a reaction to the HK controversy are just joking or serious. I would hope they are joking but enough folks here are ignorant as to how game dev works so I'm sure a good number are serious too.

 

[Tbm24]

so this was all to distract people from hong kong then?

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Blizzard has never announced a game, to my knowledge, and released it the year of or after the announcement year. Starcraft remastered might make me a liar but I'm comfortable not counting that.

 

[jviggy43]

And of course theyre scaling back the content for the first game too despite this.