Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan has confirmed that he is leaving Blizzard after 20 years with the company. Kaplan has been at the epicenter of the Overwatch community, providing inspiration for gamers with his journey from gamer to game dev, and facilitating a microcosm of fans that are unafraid to geek out and be involved with the Blizzard family.
The news of Kaplan’s departure is shocking as he took to the Blizzard Blog to detail the change in leadership for Overwatch. Though he is leaving the Overwatch community as game director, Blizzard promises fans that Overwatch 2 is continuing in its development under the helm of Aaron Keller. Keller is a founding member of the Overwatch team, and he will be taking over Kaplan’s role going forward.
“Speaking of Overwatch 2, development is continuing at a good pace,” said Keller in an open letter to fans. “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.”
Kaplan himself weighed in with his own personal note, saying, “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.”
Blizzard promises that a more thorough update is on the horizon. For now, we must say goodbye to Kaplan and everything he has done to keep the Overwatch community wholesome, hopeful, and excited for the future.
[Source: Blizzard]
