Blizzard’s game originally announced that PvE would differentiate the sequel from the first game (which has since been rendered inaccessible and unplayable), but we’re now at the point where there’s almost nothing left of the player-versus-enemy elements.

Blizzard has announced in a forum post that the co-op PvE mode, Hero Mastery Gauntlet, will be discontinued next season due to lack of interest. According to Community Manager Kaedi, their goal was to bring the thrill of the Hero Mastery missions into a multiplayer format, but players didn’t receive it the way they had hoped. In Hero Mastery Gauntlet, three players defend towers against waves of robots using exploding barrels and turrets. Your score is determined by how efficiently you take out the robots and pick up the coins that appear on the field. There’s no progression system (like the skill trees in last year’s Hero Mode), and only minor cosmetic items can be acquired.

It’s not so much that Blizzard is removing the Hero Mastery Gauntlet, but rather that it’s removing it from Overwatch 2 four months after its debut, which has recently taken a strange stance on what it thinks about PvE. The story missions are there, but now they’re tucked away under the “Missions” menu, and it’s no surprise that the game is throwing bots at us due to a lack of interest from other players. Bloomberg and Kotaku both claim that with Activision Blizzard’s PvE team gutted by cutbacks, don’t expect a second set of missions.

Perhaps it would have been best if the Hero Mastery Gauntlet had remained available, but slowly tweaked to be closer to what players originally wanted from PvE. Overwatch 2 is starting to feel more like a MOBA (and maybe that’s why it’s no wonder Valve is trying Deadlock, it showed up in the news today) than an FPS…

Source: Forrás: PCGamer, Blizzard, Bloomberg, Kotaku