Jeff Kaplan is against cutting content from Overwatch players to make them play the sequel
When game director Jeff Kaplan revealed Overwatch 2 during BlizzCon this early November, we were hit with conflicting emotions. While we can’t deny that we adore Blizzard’s hero-focused game, it felt awful that the game would be getting a sequel. Because that surely meant there would be no more content for the original game, right?
Apparently no, that isn’t the case. We later found out during the event that not only would skins carry over, but the rest of your progression in the game (such as level) would be carried over too. This means that yes, your favourite Soldier 76 skin where his butt doesn’t look like a square, will indeed be accessible to you in Overwatch 2.
But it isn’t just progression that’ll be there for you. Everyone will be able to get the upgraded Overwatch 2 look, and have access to the new maps, heroes, skins, etc without spending a single penny. The only thing you’ll need to pay for is PvE story missions, which we have yet to know the actual price of.
That said, according to Jeff Kaplan, this new ‘model’ of merging Overwatch 1 and 2 came with its own challenges. One of these challenges being to convince Blizzard that the merge was actually a good idea.
Speaking to Kotaku Australia, Kaplan admitted the difficulty that came with trying to sell the merging of two games. “It’s very challenging because the industry has done things the same way for so long. And so it’s hard to get people, push them out of their comfort zone and say, hey I think we could do it a better way.”
As most gaymers know, when games like Overwatch get a sequel, the chance of the original dying rises significantly. For Kaplan, he wanted to offer an alternative that may not affect them all that positively financially (at first), but would make long-term players happy and thus, improve the relationship between players and the developers.
Referring to cutting content at the root of Overwatch 1 to force players to jump to Overwatch 2, Kaplan said, “that, in my opinion, is not the right way. I always try to come at things from a player-first standpoint. What do I want as a player?”
As of now, there is no official release date for Overwatch 2.
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