Overwatch 2 Leaks Were "Demoralizing," Blizzard Says

Blizzard Entertainment has commented on Overwatch 2's leak prior to the official BlizzCon 2019 reveal, calling it a "demoralizing" experience for the development team.

Game director Jeff Kaplan spoke to Kotaku Australia about the general feeling that washed over Team 4, Blizzard's internal team responsible for Overwatch, following the sequel's leak. "It's extremely demoralizing," Kaplan explained. "You feel totally deflated."

Kaplan said he understands that leaks are bound to happen, but what bothers him and the Overwatch team the most is the lack of context. "When you're trying so hard to deliver something for somebody and to have it be spoiled in a way that's not coherent," Kaplan said. "That's the part that bothers us the most, where people are not given all the information and all of the context that they need to understand what we're doing."

"Our artists are heartbroken: They take such care to make the art look beautiful, and then we get some crappy version of what the art looks like ... and then people are like, 'I don't know it doesn't look that good' and we're like, no it does, it looks amazing! It's just a crappy screenshot that someone took, so it can be a bit demoralizing," Kaplan said. "But my interactions with everybody on the team today is everybody's on cloud nine."

Blizzard has discussed the myriad new features coming to Overwatch 2. Along with new Hero redesigns, Overwatch 2 will include new maps, an additional game mode called Push, PvE Story missions, and more. While Overwatch 2 is a full-fledged sequel, not an expansion, progression and skins from the first game will carry over. No official release date or window has been confirmed, but Overwatch 2 will launch on Nintendo Switch, PC (via Battle.net), PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.