Overwatch 2 Preview – Exclusive First Hands-On With The PvE Story Missions

Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 dev team ignited the community last month when it announced that the Hero Missions, part of the PvE content that was announced alongside the game in 2019, were canceled. Not all PvE was cut. I traveled to Blizzard’s headquarters in Irvine, California to be the first person outside of the company to get my hands on the upcoming Story Missions.

The PvE summary

Story Missions are set during the invasion by the Null Sector and the Omnic group. Overwatch 2 Invasion, the new Season 6, includes the PvE mission. Zero Hour, the cinematic that was released at Overwatch 2’s announcement in 2019 showed Winston, Tracer and Mei battling an Omnic giant to save Paris.

Null Sector has continued to wreck havoc on the planet since that first battle. They’re not only destroying major cities but also abducting Omnics, for an unknown purpose. The world looks to Overwatch’s heroes to help stop this wave of destruction.

Invasion

The first wave of Story Missions that arrive with Season 6: Invasion includes missions from Rio de Janeiro, Toronto and Gothenburg (which were previously shown at Blizzcon). They feature huge, goal-filled maps as well as in-depth narratives that are far more detailed than previous PvE material, often tied to seasonal event. 

Aaron Keller, game director at Blizzard Entertainment says: “We don’t typically go into detail in-game when it comes to our stories.” This is a PvP game and we do our best to create characters and build an universe using voice interaction. But we haven’t really followed up the thread we started with Winston’s ‘Recall” cinematic, which launched Overwatch. In a moment, Winston asked the players: “Are You With Me?” He is trying to bring Overwatch together. Since then, we have had many cinematics where players responded to the call. But we have never connected them all. The story we will tell in Season 6 focuses on the moment when Overwatch reunites and answers Winston’s call.

You will be fighting against mobs full of Omnics. Blizzard has stated that Null Sector is going to continue attacking until it’s completely destroyed. Null Sector is a familiar enemy, but new enemies like Annihilators or Stalkers bring new twists and turns to the battles.

Hands-On

Toronto was the location of my hands on session. The mission starts with the “previously …”” segment, which contains animations and cutscenes taken from previous Overwatch videos. Toronto is the middle part of this first Story Mission arc, so I appreciated getting caught up on the story. The upcoming release includes eight cinematics, and an innumerable number of voice lines.

The largest Overwatch maps ever released will be available to players in this PvE release. Blizzard developed new tools and created new streaming technology for these maps. After loading into the game, I reach a computer terminal. The communication screen lets me dive into Overwatch with pages dedicated to communications and emails from team members, or look at photos of desks to activate voice lines. Once I’m ready for the mission, I can initiate it from this same computer terminal.

The Story Missions are always populated by human players. Developers tell me that in the event of a player dropping out, a robot may temporarily take their place, but at this time, there is no way to play with a team made up entirely of bots. My squad is full of Overwatch Developers, and I’m confident. So we chose Hard, which despite the name, was only the second highest difficulty level. When you go into a mission, you can select Normal, Hard, Expert, or Legendary. We now begin the mission.

Toronto is brought to life in the opening cinematic. Null sector is grabbing Omnics and attacking the humans. Null Sector is very clear in their message: Humans are treating Omnics as slaves and they need to be freed. Null Sector ambushes an Omnic and human group, but Sojourn is there just in the nick of time to save them. Cassidy and Reinhardt emerge shortly after, along with various Overwatch members, including Winston. 

We only select characters that make sense in this mission. In this case, it’s the team members who were in the cutscene, which encompasses the heroes of Overwatch. However, it’s not that simple, as characters like Torbjörn, Soldier: 76, and Zenyatta aren’t around at this point in time. Cassidy’s magnetic grenade is a great weapon, but his mobility and range are also impressive. While Mercy, Winston, or the required Sojourn are chosen by my teammates, I choose Cassidy. As the narrative unfolds through missions and accompanying cutscenes you will hear unique interactions from the selected characters and learn new story elements.

Toronto, our mission, is to get the Omnics and humans out of town. We begin to fight Null Sector grunts as soon as we leave the spawn area. They are simple enemies, and I expected them to be easy to defeat. However, one thing that surprised me was the fact they were destructible. Just when I thought I had bested one by blowing its head clean off with Cassidy’s pistol, it continued charging towards me. It keeps stumbling towards me, even after I’ve blown off its legs with another. As a new wave of Omnics rushes into the ship, I quickly finish off all three.

The evacuation is halted to fight off another Null Sector grunt, this time accompanied by Artillery Bots. They have mounted giant blasters which can cause heavy damage even from a distance. They’re also destructible so we aim for the huge guns. They are no longer as powerful, now that they can’t deal the majority of damage. After we survive, more Omnics begin to flood the ship. The waves of enemy robots that are dog-like and only interested in damaging the ship continue this cycle. Keep defending the ship, while keeping an eye out on the health of the vessel. We thwart Null Sector’s attack.

Then we proceed through downtown. In most games, the clearly-defined combat zones give you clues that your enemies are close by, but there will also be random Null Sector Bots to fight on route. Overwatch will face a new enemy in the next encounter: Stalkers. The bots use gravity to draw nearby players and then unleash all kinds of havoc on them. In our missions, the stalkers are the most deadly enemies. They can pull players in and knock them down. Keep them away.

As we continue through, we meet up with Claire, an Omnic trying to help Overwatch in its mission. We encounter the next enemy as we move through the underground powered down metro. It is the Subjugator. The floating Null-Sector robots ignore player characters and go after friendly Omnics. They attach a clamp on their heads if they latch onto them. In a mid mission cutscene we see it happen to an Omnic.

Throughout the remainder of the mission, we must fend off massive groups of grunts, Subjugators, Artillery, and Stalkers while learning more about the leader of Null Sector – could a face-off against Ramattra be in the near future? In one combat scene, there is even an Elite grunt that packs a punch. It requires additional damage to defeat. In this particular battle, Stalkers took out both Mercy and Winston. But by working with the Sojourn on my team, we can survive. 

Finally, we reach the last part of the task: a massive push for our own evac boat in the middle park. Null Sector wants Claire and Overwatch to stay in the park. One point, I turned the corner and came face-to-face with three Artilleries. The Blizzard Team tells me to board the ship and get out of there. The mission ends with a bang when I complete the Cassidy’s Ultimate. 

Cassidy tells Winston that he should stop trying to locate Soldier: 76 as Jack has been too busy chasing the ghosts. Genji makes the decision that Zenyatta might make a great recruit, and he sets off to do so. Meanwhile, the rest of the team heads off to Torbjörn in hopes that he will have some way to remove the Omnic head clamps the Subjugators install.

Even though I only completed one mission it was an impressive piece of gaming. Our playthrough of the Toronto mission took 31 minutes, excluding cutscenes. Not only was I pleasantly surprised at the size of the map, but by the diversity of the battles. You’ll also receive Battle Pass progression for your efforts.

While I’m still disappointed by the cancellation of the Hero Missions, I’ve always wanted an expansion of what the seasonal-event PvE content has offered since the original run of Overwatch content. Story Missions are the culmination, evolution and expansion of this foundation. Invasion is coming soon and I am looking forward to the Story Missions.

Pricing

The Overwatch 2: Invasion Bundle will cost $15, and will include the three story missions, a brand new Legendary skin for Sojourn (plus access to Sojourn for new players once you complete the Story Mission challenges), and $10 worth of Overwatch Coins (1,000 Coins) – enough to purchase a Premium Battle Pass. For $40, you get all of that, plus the Null Sector Premium Battle Pass, 20 Battle Pass skips, an additional $10 in Overwatch Coins (1,000 Coins), a Legendary skin for Cassidy, and a Legendary skin for Kiriko in the Overwatch 2: Ultimate Invasion Bundle. 

Additional Updates

Invasion Season also features a bonus co-op missions that take place in King’s Row. Underworld lets players guide an armed Push Bot forward in a mission designed to rescue Iggy and Omnic Underworld. Blizzard suggests that this mission may include enemies and new objectives. Hero Mastery will be added to this update, allowing you to put your character’s skills under the spotlight.

Keller said that even though the Hero Missions have been canceled, some of their work has been repurposed into other content. The event missions that will be released in Season 6 are inspired by some Hero Missions. We would love to reuse more of this stuff because there are a number of cool, innovative things we have done.

Flashpoint, the new PvP-only core mode, is also included in this season’s Overwatch 2 if you are only interested in PvP. In this mode that will be open to everyone in Quick Play as well Competitive Play, two brand new locations are added, making it the largest PvP maps ever in Overwatch 2. In Flashpoint, teams fight for control across different positions across the map. It is your objective to take three before the opponent. The next active one will be activated as soon as the first one is taken. 

The content of Season 6 will likely be the most extensive since Overwatch 2 was launched in 2016. While some seasons may not have as much content to offer, you can expect others will. 

“[Season 6]”It’s definitely larger,” Keller states. This is why we don’t save content to release in the future. That’s what box releases are for games. This is because we want to continue to support our live game but also, Season 6 is a big release. It’s the result of all the work we did over the years to prepare for it. This is the culmination of years spent working on content that we had been saving. We now realize it’s not worth continuing to save. Overwatch Seasons should include more than these two elements. Story Missions for Season 6 are what we’re planning for future seasons. They won’t be centered around Story Missions. “They can revolve around different parts of the game.”

Keller was not ready to say when the next set of Story Missions would be available. However, he assured players that they are working hard on new Story Missions. The team also has big plans for the near future. Additionally, the team aims to be reactive to player feedback on the first missions and adjust accordingly. Overwatch 2 Invasion (also known as Season 6 in Overwatch 2) begins with the three Story Missions beginning on August 10th.