Before Microsoft agreed to acquire Activision, the latter company’s share prices had been dropping rapidly. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick had blamed this on the delays of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV. However, Overwatch 2 producer Tracy Kennedy has turned the tables and has blamed the game’s delays and issues on Kotick himself.
Why is Bobby Kotick to blame for Overwatch 2’s issues?
Apparently Kotick would randomly “shove” projects for the original Overwatch game onto the development team, according to a Tweet by Kennedy as spotted by GamesRadar. These projects would then be developed using overtime, only for them to canceled a few months down the line. This would mean months of development time on Overwatch 2 had been lost in the meantime. Kennedy also mentioned the large number of staff leaving Activision studios, sometimes “almost entire teams”, and how they’re citing Kotick as the reason for this.
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Overwatch 2 has suffered a number of issues with development taking longer than expected. The game was most recently delayed to allow the team more time to set up post-launch content and support. The California lawsuit against Activision Blizzard that alleged a toxic and abusive culture has also led to a high staff turnover and new people being brought onto the team. Many prominent developers have left the company, including Director Jeff Kaplan and Executive Producer Chacko Sonny.
On the other hand, Blizzard has previously claimed the development of Overwatch 2 slowed down support for Overwatch. Whatever the reason, Overwatch 2 is not expected to be released before 2023 at the earliest.
In other news, the original Assassin’s Creed trilogy was meant to end in space after ending its modern day story arc, but plans changed along the way. Elsewhere, players who purchase Dying Light 2 on PlayStation 4 will be able to avail themselves of a free PS5 upgrade.
