Following the announcement that Blizzard would no longer be adding Hero Missions to Overwatch 2, the team behind the hit first-person shooter has made a concentrated effort to explain what features are still on the way. In a recent livestream dedicated to discussing the game's future and upcoming season, Invasion, the team elaborated on a number of upcoming features including Story missions and a never-before-seen hero progression system.

The team opened the presentation by explaining more about the game's upcoming Story missions. While these might not be taking the same shape fans expected when the sequel was first announced, they will effectively move Overwatch's canonical story forward, something fans of the series have been waiting for for quite some time. According the studio, these missions will take place after Winston gathers all the former agents of Overwatch together, and prior to some operators meeting, such as Lucio and Reinhardt. These Story missions will give players a chance to see how certain characters first met each other, as well as what they were doing during Overwatch's downtime.

Blizzard then explained that the maps these Story missions will take place on will be "four or five times larger" than PvP maps, contain new enemies, and will use environmental features the team avoids using on PvP maps, such as tight tunnels. However, this isn't to say these maps will be entirely unfamiliar. The team confirmed that many of the maps created for these PvE experiences are largely new areas of maps already included in the game, such as King's Row and Junkertown.