The closed beta for the highly anticipated shooter “Overwatch” on PC has been delayed. Blizzard Entertainment had originally scheduled the beta for this month, but has now been pushed back to February.
The game director Jeff Kaplan announced that the process is taking longer than expected to go through the feedback from the first beta. That seems like a good idea, so that initial changes can be made before putting it out again. Another reason the beta has been delayed is because Blizzard are working on a brand new game mode. They want to make this available to play during the next beta test.
“After looking through all of the feedback from last year, one of the things we noticed players consistently mentioning was their desire for more game modes in Overwatch, in addition to Point Capture and Payload,” he explained. “Without getting into specifics, we are working on a new game mode. And we’re very excited about it! And we have some great new maps to support it, too, but we need a little more time to get everything just right.”
Kaplan also said that they could have rushed things and put it out in time, but they wouldn’t have been able to put out the new maps, modes and updates.
“We’re going to take a few extra weeks before bringing the closed beta back,” he said. “By doing so, we can make sure we can include the new game mode along with the new maps. This will also allow us to do some additional polish to the game’s progression and reward system. Though all these features will still technically be a work-in-progress during the beta, we’d like them to be at a certain quality bar before releasing them for testing.”
There hasn’t yet been an exact date announced for the beta in February, but will be sometime mid-February. Kaplan thinks it’s unlikely the beta will miss its date again. The first beta provided plenty for feedback, that has kept the team at Blizzard busy. The first beta closed in December, and it was recorded that over 900,000 games were played.
Everyone who was in the first beta will still have access, and there will also be new players added. The game is also planned to be released on PS4 and Xbox One, but no details have been released yet.
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