Enjoy your favorite Overwatch characters while you can, as they could one day be retired from the game.
In an interview with Game Informer, when asked about the possibility of characters being cycled out of the game, Creative and Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan said, “We would leave the door open to that. I think the fact that we chose the business model we did – that the game comes with all the heroes and we’re giving you everything [extra] for free so far – allows us to retire a hero without feeling bad about it. But I think we have a long way to go before heroes will need to be,”
While Kaplan stresses that issue won’t be happening for awhile, it’s interesting the team is even considering removing a character from the game entirely.
Kaplan goes on to talk about the game’s business model not reliant on new characters, “One of the other nice parts about our business model is that we’re not dependent on releasing a new hero to keep development going. That means that we don’t have the pressure to release heroes when it might not be the right decision for the game; we’re able to release heroes when players are ready for something new or it’s right for the meta to shift a little bit. We don’t have to do it just because we’re trying to push the business model forward.”
Overwatch recently ended it’s first in-game event, celebrating the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics with exclusive skins, icons, sprays and a new brawl game mode, while also releasing a brand new character a few weeks ago and patching some of the most over-powered characters.
So as of now, there’s no need to panic, your favorite characters aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Something to keep in the back of your mind, though.
