Jared Neuss, Executive Producer for Overwatch 2, has shut down rumors of the game’s PvE plans changing drastically due to Blizzard’s Return-To-Office (RTO) policy.
When the Overwatch dev team announced that Overwatch 2’s PvE was being scaled back from its initial promises, the community was not happy. Many quickly bemoaned the broken promises of certain content that was showcased as early as 2019.
Despite the devs responding to comments of the scrapped features and apologizing for the pullback on much of the promised content, rumors started circulating that it was due to a company-wide policy Blizzard had instated.
Reports circulated in February as Activision Blizzard informed staff of its new RTO policy, ensuring a vast majority of its workforce would be returning to studio offices as soon as possible. Backlash then ensued as devs from within publicly hit out at these commands, claiming they felt “unvalued” amid the decision.
In light of Overwatch 2’s major pivot, some began to point the finger at Blizzard’s Return to Office (RTO) policy and the brain drain the company is going through as a result. Perhaps as the most likely cause of the PvE changes.
However, Jared Neuss, executive producer for Overwatch 2, has decided to completely shut down the rumors for good.
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We'll go into a bit more historical detail in the next Director's Take. I hope that the additional context can shed some light on why we made this decision.
— Jared Neuss (@OhReallyJared) May 17, 2023
In a tweet by Neuss addressing the claims he said bluntly, “I’ve seen speculation that the changes to PvE scope on Overwatch 2 are related to Blizzard’s RTO policy. For the record, that isn’t true.”
He continues, “Managing PvE and PvP development simultaneously has been a challenge for the team for years. It’s a less exciting headline but it’s reality.” He further says that the dev team will go into historical detail of the PvE in the next Director’s Take.
ClearTogether was one to report from a source in Blizzard that their RTO policy was causing their games to suffer in quality. However, she would go on to delete the tweet, apologizing to Neuss and her followers for spreading the rumors.
Neuss replied to ClearTogether’s apology, “Your post wasn’t the only piece of speculation on this. RTO is a contentious topic in the industry so I totally understand. I just wanted to set the record straight that this was an internal issue, not an external one.”