On May 17, 2023, Twitch celebrity Felix “xQc” discussed the contentious Overwatch 2 update with his audience.
The game’s executive producer, Jared Neuss, said during the Dev Chat livestream that the eagerly anticipated PvE (Players versus Environment) mode, which was one of the hero-based shooter’s greatest selling features, had been axed. After hearing the news, xQc was astounded and questioned what Overwatch 2’s future contained. Then he pointed out that since the competitive game’s debut, only three new maps and a hero had been introduced. In order to compare new features in Overwatch and its sequel, the French Canadian started creating graphs in Microsoft Paint and stated: “If they are not working on PvE and they’re not doing it anymore, then where is all the time spent then?! We’re talking about thousands of hours gone! Where are they?! I’m confused! Brother… because Overwatch 2 wasn’t even an update! It wasn’t. It was just… the updates that were missing, from the main game, dropped at once!”
When xQc was looking through the r/LivestreamFail subreddit, he came upon a popular video of Jared Neuss declaring that the PvE mode in Overwatch 2 had been abandoned. The team won’t be able to fulfill the “original concept” for PvE, according to Neuss. He clarified: “With everything we’ve learned about what it takes to operate this game, at the level you deserve, it’s clear that we can’t deliver on that original vision for PvE, that was shown in 2019. What that means is that, we won’t be delivering the dedicated Hero Mode and the Talent Trees. That long-term power progression. Those things just aren’t in our plans anymore.”
After hearing this, xQc proposed that Overwatch 2’s scenario was the same as any other game with a typical content plan because it lacked a PvE mode: “Wait, hold up. What the f**k? Wait, then what is the plan then? Wait, brother! Then, what even is the plan then? What do they have? There is literally… brother, Overwatch 2 is like, three maps, one character, which is, okay… which is literally the same thing as the normal content roadmap for updates for the main game!”
Microsoft Paint was then opened by xQc, who started making a graph to contrast Overwatch 2 with its predecessor: “This is Overwatch updates (Y-Axis). This is one update, per whatever. Two. Three. Four. Right? And this is your timeline (X-Axis). Right, chat? You guys get it, or not? Right? And then, before Overwatch; red is Overwatch 1. It is kind of like this (the streamer displays Overwatch 1 getting constant updates during its lifetime). They would update the game constantly, right? With, like, a new character, or like, a new map, every once in a while. Right?”
Blizzard Entertainment allegedly ceased releasing new for Overwatch 1, which led to a decline in the game’s popularity, according to xQc. He continued by saying that Overwatch 2’s main objective was to remedy the lack of content: “Basically, Overwatch 2 was just literally them catching up with all the missing updates, they just… continued to do the same way, but they just added on other things that were missing. Right?”
