Posts Tagged: Hero

GoPro unveils its latest action camera, the Hero 12 Black

Unveiled on Wednesday, GoPro’s new Hero 12 Black action camera offers a few notable upgrades that include a significant boost to battery life.
Digital Trends

‘Overwatch 2’ director explains why hero missions were canceled

When Blizzard announced earlier this week that it had canceled Overwatch 2 hero missions, a central part of its player vs. environment (PvE) story mode, fans were none too pleased. So director Aaron Keller published a blog post today to ease the concerns and offer more transparency about the development team’s “incredibly difficult decision.”

Hero missions, revealed in 2019, were designed to provide a “deeply repayable” branch of the game based on RPG-like talent trees. Although progression would have been separate from the main game (to avoid giving hero mission players an unfair advantage), it was still part of the hype Blizzard used during the past four years of marketing the title. But the publisher ultimately found that the hero missions were pulling too many development resources away from the live game.

“When we launched Overwatch in 2016, we quickly started talking about what that next iteration could be,” Keller wrote. “Looking back at that moment, it’s now obvious that we weren’t as focused as we should have been on a game that was a runaway hit. Instead, we stayed focused on a plan that was years old.” That years-old plan refers to the development team’s influence from its work on Project Titan, Blizzard’s canceled MMORPG. The creators initially saw Overwatch as a vessel to reintegrate some of the ideas from that scrapped project.

Overwatch 2 screenshot featuring two heroes standing on a large metallic flower petal
Blizzard Entertainment

“Work began on the PvE portion of the game and we steadily continued shifting more and more of the team to work on those features.” But, Keller says, “Scope grew. We were trying to do too many things at once and we lost focus. The team built some really great things, including hero talents, new enemy units and early versions of missions, but we were never able to bring together all of the elements needed to ship a polished, cohesive experience.”

Keller says the team’s ambition for hero missions was devouring resources at the expense of the core gameplay. “We had an exciting but gargantuan vision and we were continuously pulling resources away from the live game in an attempt to realize it,” said Keller. “I can’t help but look back on our original ambitions for Overwatch and feel like we used the slogan of ‘crawl, walk, run’ to continue to march forward with a strategy that just wasn’t working.”

The decision to abandon hero missions came down to prioritizing present quality over past promises. “We had announced something audacious,” Keller reflected. “Our players had high expectations for it, but we no longer felt like we could deliver it. We needed to make an incredibly difficult decision, one we knew would disappoint our players, the team, and everyone looking forward to Hero Missions. The Overwatch team understands this deeply — this represented years of work and emotional investment. They are wonderful, incredibly talented people and truly have a passion for our game and the work that they do.”

Overwatch 2’s story missions — minus the canned hero missions — are set to arrive in season six, scheduled for mid-August. PvE aspects include a single-player version with a leaderboard, in-game and out-of-game stories and “new types of co-op content we haven’t yet shared.” Before that content arrives, there’s still season five, set to launch in June.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/overwatch-2-director-explains-why-hero-missions-were-canceled-211629105.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

GoPro Hero 9 at Lowest-Ever Price for Black Friday

Save big on the fantastic GoPro Hero 9 at Amazon right now and enjoy a superior video camera for less.
Emerging Tech | Digital Trends

GoPro boosts Hero 10 performance with new firmware and Enduro battery

GoPro is fixing overheating and battery life issues with a firmware update and is introducing the new Enduro battery.
Mobile | Digital Trends

GoPro’s Hero 9 Black might include a color front screen for vloggers

How does GoPro expand the audience for its Hero action cameras? By courting the vlogging crowd, according to a leak. WinFuture claims to have images of the Hero 9 Black that show a color front screen rather than the usual data-only monochrome display…
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Amazon’s free-to-play hero shooter ‘Crucible’ arrives May 20th

Amazon Games' long-in-the-works hero shooter will be available in just a couple of weeks. It'll release Crucible, which it announced at TwitchCon 2016, on May 20th. Amazon’s Relentless Studios developed the free-to-play PC game.You'll play as one of…
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Overwatch’s new hero Echo arrives April 14th

If you’re an Overwatch fan, you’ll want to mark April 14th on your calendar. That’s when Echo, the game’s 32nd hero, will join its official roster pool. Following the flight plan.Echo swoops into Overwatch on April 14! pic.twitter.com/BWO8W6ivDO— O…
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The next ‘Overwatch’ hero is an AI robot with an important story link

Overwatch's newest hero is Echo. Fans have been waiting a while for Blizzard to add a new playable character to the game. It's been seven months since the company introduced Sigma, the game's 31st hero. The anticipation for Echo has been building lon…
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[TA Deals] Develop your own games with the 2017 Zero to Hero Game Developer bundle

Mobile game development can be tough to break into without any help, but luckily, you can score the 2017 Zero to Hero Game Developer bundle at a big discount right now. This bundle includes 9 courses with 413 lessons and over 80 hours of content. It covers a ton of different skills, including developing in […]

Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] Develop your own games with the 2017 Zero to Hero Game Developer bundle

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HTC apologizes for its slow start to 2015 and teases a new Hero phone for the fall

In a response to its weak start to 2015, HTC promised to improve its performance across the board. It may also release a new product this October. HTC didn’t reveal details on the product, though.

The post HTC apologizes for its slow start to 2015 and teases a new Hero phone for the fall appeared first on Digital Trends.

Mobile | Digital Trends