After canceling some of the PvE content a few weeks ago, the developers ofOverwatch 2 risk spending a difficult fortnight on the networks since Blizzard announced that PvE missions will only be accessible via a paid Pass. With Invasion, players will therefore discover new story missions, but these require the purchase of the $15 Invasion bundle.
Access to story missions via a paid Pass?
Some will think it’s a bad joke but that’s not the case, permanent access to the Invasion story missions (three missions for the moment) is blocked behind a $15 Pass. If this one also includes a legendary skin for Sojourn and 1000 Overwatch coins, the pill is hard to pass for part of the community. Especially since this announcement comes a few weeks after the cancellation of the main PvE mode mentioned from the original presentation of the game at BlizzCon 2019.
So whether you bought Overwatch 2 or it is the legacy of buying the first game, access to story missions will only be through the Invasion bundle.
PvE but only in co-op mode
While the community was not yet aware of the existence of a paywall to access story missions, it was already criticizing the presence of a restriction concerning PvE on Overwatch 2: missions against Sector Zero are only playable in co -op with real players. So while it is possible to tag to play with strangers, OW fans would have preferred the ability to play with an AI.
In the end, the announcements follow one another but the overall image of the title continues to be affected by relatively questionable decisions. Although there was never any question of free access to PvE content, players would probably have preferred free initial access in order to discover the first missions before perhaps seeing more content appear via a paywall linked to a Full Battle Pass including PvE and PvP. Especially since in the end, Invasion only includes three (rather long) co-op missions against the AI, for $15 a pill will be hard to swallow for some fans.