Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan leaves Blizzard
In one of the most shocking departures for the company yet, Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan has left Blizzard Entertainment.
Over the past few years, anyone who has followed Blizzard Entertainment has gotten used to staff departures. However, Tuesday's news is a massive stunner, nonetheless. Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan has announced that he will be leaving the company after working with Blizzard for 19 years.
Here's the full letter from Kaplan, which was posted on the Blizzard website:
i am leaving Blizzard Entertainment after 19 amazing years.
it was truly the honor of a lifetime to have the opportunity to create worlds and heroes for such a passionate audience. i want to express my deep appreciation to everyone at blizzard who supported our games, our game teams and our players. but i want to say a special thanks to the wonderful game developers that shared in the journey of creation with me.
never accept the world as it appears to be. always dare to see it for what it could be. i hope you do the same.
gg,
jeffrey kaplan
Kaplan will be succeeded by Aaron Keller, who has been with the Overwatch team since its inception. Here's his letter to the Overwatch community, also on the same website post:
Greetings, Overwatch Community,
Jeff's been a great leader, mentor, and friend, and he knows how much we’re going to miss him. I've been lucky to work alongside him and the rest of the Overwatch team for many years in building something that continues to inspire people all around the world, and I'm honored to carry the torch forward.
I love Overwatch. From our first pieces of concept art, to the first maps we built, to the first time I was able to run around as Tracer (who at that early point shot laser beams out of her eyes), this game has just clicked with me. I love its inspiring, hopeful, beautiful world worth fighting for. I love its characters—larger than life, colorful, powerful, and global. And most of all, I love the fast, fluid gameplay requiring teamwork, situational awareness, and quick decision making.
I also recognize that making games at Blizzard has always been a group effort and never about just one point of view. Together with the rest of the team I feel fortunate that we have a deep bench of development and creative leaders, numerous veteran Blizzard artists and designers, and some extremely talented new blood as well—along with tons of support throughout the company for the live game and for Overwatch 2.
Speaking of Overwatch 2, development is continuing at a good pace. We have an exceptional vision we’re executing on, the reaction from many of you to the updates we shared at BlizzConline thrilled us, and we have exciting reveals planned for this year and beyond as we ramp to launch. We'll be sharing more frequent updates about Overwatch 2 progress and new features in the live game with you all very soon.
While I have no pretenses about filling Jeff's shoes, I'm excited to step into the game director role and continue to be part of a team that's putting all of its heart, talent, and focus into the next iteration of Overwatch, and I'm honored to continue serving this incredible community.
-Aaron
Kaplan's sudden departure is a shocker, arguably the most surprising exit since CEO Mike Morhaime left the company in 2018. It's stunning mainly because Overwatch 2 is such a high-profile project on Blizzard's upcoming release list. Overwatch 2's development has already been slowed significantly due to outside factors like the COVID-19 pandemic and is not expected to release in 2021. However, as Keller noted in his letter, there will apparently be news on the Overwatch 2 front in the months ahead.
It also can't be overstated how much of a central community figure Kaplan was. He was the face of Overwatch, personally appearing in various patch videos, frequently speaking to the Overwatch player base, and even showing up in special yule log streams. He was long-recognized as the unmoving figure on the chair in front of the Christmas fire, which proved to be so popular that Blizzard would keep the tradition going for years.
The ramifications of Kaplan's exit will be felt throughout Overwatch for a long time, especially as Blizzard kicks off a new season of the Overwatch League and prepares for the game's eventual sequel. Shacknews will monitor this story closely as it unfolds.
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Shacknews
replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan leaves Blizzard
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Jeff Kaplan leaving Blizzard
https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/23665015/ -
blizz = ded
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Can't be good for the future. Then again I don't even know what OW2 really is. Its super confusing to me for some reason.
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Ouch, big loss. I am sure he was quite sick of Overwatch though. 10 years of developing the same game has to be draining.
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I swear, if I have to sit through one more meeting about asses I'm gonna scream
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He has lasted for much longer than I expected him to. Most game directors at Blizz have moved on after launch + couple years. Hearthstone is on its 4th game director I think.
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definitely nothing wrong with 2-2-2, back when it was the original roster of heroes. It is just that as they added more heroes, some broke the 2-2-2 (Brigette and GOATS) and teams needed flex to get off 2-2-2. That's part of the growing pains of any game that you continually add new content like heroes to - you get combos that you as the dev can't predict. (eg can't blame Kaplan for that). They found a good way to resolve it after a lot of tuning.
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You're way WAY off base dude.
2-2-2 was implemented partly to break Brig/GOATS. GOATS was a 3-3 comp with a hypercharged Brig and Lucio (and skilled/decisive players at the wheel) at the center of it.
2-2-2 forced people off of the "optimal" comp of three tanks and three supports. As a result Blizzard was able to actually patch tanks and supports in more interesting directions. It opened up their space because players couldn't just abuse having a team made up entirely of characters with insane utility.
The patch direction over the last year further improved things by heavily nerfing shields and healing, making the game much brawlier and faster as a result since people can't expect to win simply by turtling around shields with insane sustain once a fight breaks out.-
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No question. They spend over half of last year making big balance changes every 1-3 weeks and it came out the other side in a terrific place.
For a while it felt like Dota 2 after a major patch dropped, where there are patches dropping constantly but its slowly nudging towards a new and better equilibrium-
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GOATS requires insane skill and coordination. That said, I feel last year's rebalancing made the game significantly better across the board and no matter what your skill level.
There are no longer "must have" tanks or supports. You select characters based on utility and strategy, not "who has the most shields" and "who has the highest healing output".
Lucio used to be a dumpster tier pick and it was impossible to run a comp with Roadhog and Zarya. Now you can run comps with no shields and where your tactics revolve around mobility or damage boosting rather than being tied to supports that only excel at healing. The game has never had so many viable options, which is great not just for high level play but also at lower tiers where people kind of play whatever.
The biggest change is honestly the fact that natural cover got a massive buff because shields (except for Winston's bubble which is necessary since its how he survives when he dives) got turned into paper. This is totally fine because Overwatch is a shooter, after all :)-
I agree with you when you put it this way. Unfortunately it’s kind of unbelievablehow so many players will throw a fit if there’s no Rein, even when it’s clearly not working that great like when the shield breaks down almost instantly/healers can’t provide rein with enough support, nobody actually uses the shield etc. On the other hand Hog’s self-sustain ability and damage output can free up healers and get more picks than the shitty 5% accuracy Ashe that needed the shield to begin with. People are still clinging to dumb definitions of “tank” and “off tank” even though the game doesn’t really work like that anymore.
I am really happy to hear that for OW2 they’ll turn all tanks into “brawlers” (kind of like more aggressive but more squishy tanks from Heroes of the Storm). Like rein will have two fire strikes and more mobility during his charge etc.
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It was definitely bad the first couple months when people were still conditioned to shoot behind tanks and a mile from cover. People slowly caught on but you still have some people who don’t get it every now and then.
The worst is when you have Rein who don’t recognize that the HAMMER is the most important part of their kit, not their shield, but tanks are also the hardest role to play well and that only comes from experience -
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Yeah exactly! Rein can be great as long as the team joins in. Like Serpico said - the hammer is more important than the shield... an aggressive rein can steamroll a round and chain ultimates easily... I was amazed when I realized my DPS main friend (plat) didn’t even know that damage is the main thing that charges Rein’s ulti.
Also who is that dude?-
To use fighting game concepts, tanks convert neutral space into safe space. They are not shield bots.
Tanks take up space to make it safe for their team or to deny it from the enemy. Their mobility and effective range determines what sort of neutral space they are effective at taking and converting. More than any other role they were the tempo for movement and engagements
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Oh that's right about team comp and GOATS, I got my timing wrong.
Just that my point is that the game was well balanced at retail release but as they added characters (and perhaps a bit too fast) they couldn't keep up with the balance mismatch. As others later point out, the last year has helped to better balance the game as without any new chars since Echo, the balance team has room to breathe and make decisions. I wouldn't put any of that at Jeff's feet being a problem, that's just the nature of a hero-style game that gets expansions-
I don't even think it comes down to balancing around individual characters. They reframed what tanks and supports even are. There's a massive difference between the new mental framework they shifted to and numbers tweaking around individual characters.
I honestly feel that Wrecking Ball is part of what allowed them to rethink tanks in the first place, once "space creation" became a core tenet for the designers rather than "main tank shield the team and off-tanks peel at close range" being the only mental model.
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It is insanely difficult to balance a game like Overwatch.
Like...insanely, insanely difficult. I think he's done pretty well as the Game Director, TBH. -
I don't agree at all, the game has never been better IMO. I'm still not too freaked out about a change in leadership though, the new lead has been on the team just as long as Jeff. I feel like Overwatch is in pretty good hands. The main thing I don't agree with them on is the fact that they paused all new content for OW1 so they could hold it back for OW2 - that feels like something that was forced on them for business reasons. But if that's the worst they're being made to do then I'm not too concerned.
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Limiting the number of utility characters was the way to counterbalance them having priority over high damage characters who are balanced by lacking utility.
2-2-2 not only addressed this, it also created space to make characters overall more powerful and exciting. When you are limited to two tanks/DPS/supports, individual characters can be more powerful and interesting. Balance and design massively improved after 2-2-2 was made standard.
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Jeff’s personal crusade was making the transition from Overwatch 1 to the sequel as consumer-friendly as possible, with any skins and currencies rolling over. That’s wildly divergent from Activision’s usual business practices (e.g. yearly Call of Duty games), so it’s my guess that Jeff set an ultimatum. Guess the corporate bigwigs made their choice.
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I’m not really sure of what the best solution is. I think they should have just made it an expansion within the Overwatch client instead because calling it OW2 basically looks like it would be a completely new sequel when it’s really not.
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Right after OW2 comes out: "We are announcing Overwatch 3!"
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Is he the one for refusing to allow ultrawide resolution's in OW? If so, good riddance.
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and i mean real ultrawide resolutions, not cropped 16:9 resolutions.
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nah you cant give an edge to people who have it. how would high noon work?
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Oh god.
People have a myriad of hardware edges already. Better pings. Higher frame rates.
It’s asinine. -
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I'd still like my QuickPlay to be fair, so no thank you
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Over watch doesn’t have 4:3
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You can have a great bench but it doesn’t mean much when corporate exerts more control. Trust me, I’ve been through exactly that as the bench person as others at a corporate level take control. You can be the expert with decades on the product, too bad let’s make the product make more money this way even if it’s going to piss people off, etc.
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Certainly. Kaplan was clearly the firewall between the OW2 team and Activision. I have to assume that's why he left.
Sure, compensation for being a VP is nice but you don't actually get to spend time making games. My point is that design and balance will be fine without him, those were already roles beneath him from the jump. Hopefully the game isn't compromised with him out of the picture.
It does suck not having him as the face of the game though, he's terrific
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Damn...that dude is the face of Overwatch. Sad to see him go, but can't blame him for wanting a change. That was a lot of time on what I'm sure is a high-pressure job.
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Might also be related to Activision hiring more Trump era folks. https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-blizzard-appoints-former-trump-official-as-its-chief-administrative-officer/
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Bulatao's hiring comes mere weeks after Activision appointed Frances F. Townsend, a Bush-era counterterrorism advisor who notoriously defended the CIA's use of torture, as its chief compliance officer.
this hiring should trigger a compliance investigation lol -
That really can’t be good.
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his statement is in lowercase, kind of sus unless this is how he usually writes text
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he writes everything in all lowercase
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rip tigole bitties
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