Blizzard reveals more details on Overwatch 2 story mode, co-op content

Blizzard has announced more details on the story mode for Overwatch 2, along with hero missions and skill trees. All heroes and enemies have been redesigned, from small details to entirely new looks.

Hero progression and skill trees

For all PvE modes within Overwatch 2, all heroes will have skill trees to upgrade. This was announced at the original reveal, but more details were shown at BlizzCon 2021. Each hero has a choice of three trees to go down and develop, Borderlands style. For those three trees, there is seven tiers of abilities to learn. Some of these abilities were ones removed from the game long ago, such as Mercy’s area-of-affect resurrection.

One of the most interesting things arriving with hero missions are elemental abilities. Effects such as electricity and freeze will have more development in PvE game modes. This includes examples like adding electricity to Junkrat’s traps. A lot of heroes’ skill trees weren’t shown, meaning there is plenty to learn about potential builds.

Hero missions mode

Hero missions is Overwatch 2’s new cooperative game mode, played in locations all over the world. These missions allow you to improve and upgrade your heroes, as well as experiencing maps in entirely new ways. This includes new areas of maps, different kinds of enemies to face and even dynamic weather conditions. Players will encounter snowstorms in Toronto as well as sandstorms in Temple of Anubis. Plus, each map will have a day, mid-day and night version.

These missions will play much like the events we have yearly in Overwatch, but with more variance. The Overwatch team mentioned that they plan to release “hundreds” of these missions over the game’s run, giving players ample opportunity to upgrade their heroes. Each mission will have some story elements and are playable by any hero.

Overwatch 2 story mode update

The team at Blizzard has put a lot of work into the campaign for Overwatch 2. Much like the original reveal showed, the Overwatch heroes are joining back together due to another omnic uprising. So far, new areas announced include an Indian map heavily inspired by the Symmetra comic, as well as Gothenburg and the previously shown Toronto. Heroes aren’t pre-selected for all story missions, meaning players can play the heroes they want. Plus, different combos of heroes might give different in-game interactions.

Of course, with the time that has passed since the original Overwatch, heroes also look different. The team showed key examples in Widowmaker, McCree, Reaper and Pharah. However, the enemies have also changed a lot since the Overwatch 2 reveal. Blizzard admitted that they had to rebuild the game’s villains as they didn’t feel fun to defeat originally. This includes new versions of enemies, with the Puller being a prominent example.

During BlizzCon 2021, PvP changes along with the new maps were also announced.