Everytime I think Blizzard can’t possibly screw up Overwatch 2 anymore, it finds a way to surprise me. Lately, the sequel no one wanted has been drawing ire from fans for canceling Hero Mode, the one thing about the sequel anyone did actually want. The messaging around the decision is so fractured and confusing that no one seems to realize that PvE story missions are still a thing, and the first one has just been announced with a $15 price tag, which has given players a new thing to be confused and/or upset about. As a former Overwatch super fan, the only way I can get through the day anymore is to try to see the humor in a sequence of endless fumbles. It’s devastating to see such a beloved game become a mismanaged stain on Blizzard's already-soiled reputation, but it is kind of funny to see all the new and unexpected ways it can continue to mess things up.
A perfect example: no one can figure out what Blizzard means when it says you have to pay $15 for “permanent access” to the upcoming Invasion Story Mi𓂃ssions. On Monday, Blizzard made a blog posting revealing Overwatch 2: Invasion, a new co-op story mission coming August 10 alongside a new Zero Hour-style co-op event, two new PVP maps, and a new PVP game mode called Flashpoint. Those latter two things would be a pretty big deal on their own if all this story mission nonsense wasn’t getting in the way, but we’re just going to have to toss that onto the pile of Overwatch 2 foul-ups for now.
Here’s the confusing part: there’s an Overwatch 2: Invasion Bundle that will give players “permanent access to the Overwatch 2: Invasion Story missions. That verbiage was updated on Tuesday to say “access to the Overwatch 2: Invasion Story Missions, during the season and permanently after” instead. The bundle also gives you some coins, a Sojourn skin, and unlocks Sojourn on your account after finishing the Story Mission challenges, if you don't already have her. It’s the qualification that you have “permanent access” to the story missions after the season ends, along with bundle format, that has everyone second-guessing how pricing for PvE is going to work. Even with the updated wording, it’s still unclear. It seems like the story missions are free if you play them during the season, but if you want to keep them permanently (and get some extra cosmetics) you have to buy the bundle. Except that’s not how it works. $15 is just how much the Invasion story missions cost. If you want to play it, you have to buy the bundle.
The confusion around the price of the story missions is a testament to how far beyond the realm of reason we’ve gone with live service monetizing. Paying for “permanent access” to content used to just be called ‘buying a video game’, but Blizzard has to qualify what you’re getting here because there’s a lot of shit you can buy in video games these days that you do not have permanent access to. Overwatch 2’s premium seasonal battle passes cost $10, and if you don’t finish them by the end of the season, they go away forever. Blizzard wanted to make it clear that when you buy Invasion you actually own it, because that’s not nec♑essarily a given these days. Unᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚfortunately, by trying to make things clearer it only made things more confusing. Such is Blizzard’s curse, apparently.
For what it’s worth, charging $15 for a pale substitute of the PvE mode that was previously promised is pretty distasteful. Though no one ever claimed this is how it was going to work, I had hoped that the outrageous cost of cosmetics in Overwatch 2 would be counterbalanced by a free co-op mode, 🅺but evidently not. Ironically, no one would have had a problem with buying Overwatch DLC like this, had Overwatch 2 never existed. I fully expect the story missions to be good, and well worth $15 too. But I sure don’t want to give Overwatch 2 any money these days, and I think💧 that a lot of former fans feel the same way - even with the promise of “permanent access”.