Overwatch 2 Producer Says Declining Player Engagement is “Nothing Concerning” for Team

Overwatch 2: Invasion, the sixth season of the free-to-play hero shooter and its “exit” from early access is now available. It packs tons of content, from the new Flashpoint mode with new maps to three co-op story missions. There’s also Illari, the new Support hero, and Hero Mastery is coming in September.

Of course, as popular as it may be, there was a concern about declining player engagement and investment, which Activision admitted last month. Executive producer Jared Neuss spoke to IGN, and it’s “nothing concerning” for him or the team.

“The declining stuff is basically, we are a free-to-play game, and it is very easy to both come to the game and check it out and to leave to check out other stuff. We see a normal ebb and flow of players. There’s nothing concerning to me or the team about any of that.”

Concerning this season and how stacked it is, Neuss said it’s less about success depending on its release but rather “experimenting with different seasonal structures, and one of the things we wanted to try was, what if we just put all this big stuff, these awesome additions, and different expressions of the game together?

“That isn’t like a, ‘Oh, there’s so much riding on this’ kind of a thing for us. For us, it’s really about what does a good season look like? We’ve tried a bunch of stuff, right? We tried a very thematic approach with Season 5. We’ve tried different things in Seasons 2 and 3.

“It’s less about, ‘Is there all this stuff riding on Overwatch 2: Invasion?’ and more about, ‘What do we think is the right rhythm and cadence, and how do we create these big moments for players?’ ”

Overwatch 2: Invasion hasn’t been without other controversies, like the cancellation of Hero Mode and Skill Trees or the story missions requiring a $15 purchase (minimum) to play. It’s also unknown when the next story missions will arrive. As always, stay tuned in the future for more details.