The history of Overwatch is one of triumph through failure. If you recall, Blizzard started this title not as the shooter that it is now, but as a new MMORPG that would change the game known as Project Titan. After a while though, the team struggled with actually living up to their promise, and as such, the game was shifted into a character-focused team shooter that would later become the title that many know and love. The title came out in 2016 to huge love from fans and critics, due largely in part to the worldbuilding done via the character trailers. Now, on the cusp of its sequel coming out, the OG game is confirmed to be shutting down.
This news came from Blizzard’s Jon Spector, who in a chat about how things would be handled between the original game and Overwatch 2, noted that the original will last until almost literally the day before the release of the sequel.
“So roughly a day before Overwatch 2 launches, we’re going to be taking down the Overwatch 1 servers,” Spector stated about the titles. “So that means, as a practical point, that October 2nd really is the last day to go in and play Overwatch.”
He noted that there will be about a 27-hour downtime for the servers before the sequel game gets brought up for its solo run.
While this is going to make certain players sad, there are a couple of things here to remember. Something exciting is that the sequel is going to be free-to-play, something the OG was not. This will certainly open it up to all sorts of players right off the bat. What’s more, unlike the original at first, the game will be playable on all major systems including the Nintendo Switch. That means you’ll have the ability to play it no matter what system you have, and you can pre-download it before launch so you can jump right in the moment that the game’s servers go back online.
Now, there are a lot of questions about how well the sequel will play as there were some concerns during the beta. There are also questions about what might come next for the series in terms of updates, expansions, new characters, and more. But the fact of the matter is that the game will likely be another big hit at launch and so Blizzard will just be doing all they can to make sure people keep playing it.
Again, there will be players sad that the OG is shutting down, but it had an incredible six-year run where it won a lot of awards, brought plenty of gamers into the fold, and set up a series of similar titles that tried to bank off of its success. That’s a good run in our book.
Source: Eurogamer
