So I suppose while it’s still hot news, let’s talk about certain Blizzcon announcements!
One of the most bizzare things announced at this year’s presentation was for a sequel to Overwatch of all games. It was touched upon during the initial showing of the game that all your cosmetics and progression from the original game would be kept and that the two games would intrinsically work side by side rather than this new version completely invalidating the first game.
It was then clarified during later panels that what was actually happening was Overwatch was essentially upgrading to this brand new game with the same client and everything and that the actual paid portion of Overwatch 2 was just going to be the new single player and PvE content. What this boils down to then is that it’s essentially a glorified super-patch with a single player expansion pack. The situation is similar to when Fortnite updated to what they called ‘Fortnite 2.0’ however in that situation they very clearly indicated that it was a big update to the game rather than a whole new product.
It’s obvious why Blizzard are referring to it in this manner however, Marketing. It’s much easier to sell to people a completely new game and get them hyped rather than explaining to them that it’s just a big update to a game they already own, and this is especially true in the advertising department. In the end though when you look at all the information we have received and what we are actually getting this is just a fancy expansion pack with a different name. What baffles me even more however is that Blizzard still obviously refers to expansion packs as WoW got a new one announced at the very same presentation. It all just seems to me like a big marketing push and I honestly hope it stays at that because my biggest fear is that they also use a ‘sequel’ excuse to charge full price for the new single player content. If that ends up happening then you can count me out of any hype.
That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.