No one on Blizzard Entertainment’s development team for Overwatch could have guessed that it would have succeeded to this degree. Originally, it was meant to create Project Titan, an MMO projected to succeed World of Warcraft. Once Titan went bust, director Jeff Kaplan salvaged designs and concepts to create the team shooter, Blizzard’s first original IP in years.
Now that it’s become a massive success, celebrating its recent two year anniversary and 40 million registered players, does Blizzard plan to create a sequel anytime soon? Will Overwatch 2 ever become a thing? Assistant Game Director Aaron Keller and Senior Game Producer Matthew Hawley spoke to GameSpot in a round table interview and noted that they’re committed to the current game.
“I think at the core sitting here at the two-year anniversary, we’ve had a wildly successful 6v6 shooter game which has blown us away with how the community has responded to it. We dip our toes into different areas here and there with the Archives event and Junkenstein. But I think our focus is really on keeping the community engaged with the 6v6 shooter that we have on the live service,” said Keller.
Hawley echoed these statements, replying that, “Running a live service game takes a lot of work and I hope the community knows we have been committed to continually improving the game and creating content.
“What people might not realize is the team now is significantly bigger than what it was when we shipped the game, and we have put all of that into working on the live game and the new maps, heroes, and events like Anniversary. At least for the time being, [supporting Overwatch] is our focus right now, and we’re excited to work on this game.”
Suffice to say, with all the new maps, heroes, modes and features that have been coming (and are planned), the development team is far from done with the current Overwatch. What are your thoughts on a potential sequel? Let us know below.
