MostOverwatchfans view Jeff Kaplan as the backbone of the franchise and, therefore, blame him for the game’s failures and praise him for its successes. So naturally, it took most of them off guard when, last week, Kaplan announced his departure from Blizzard — and by extension his position asOverwatch’s director — with little to no explanation as to why. It didn’t help that he dropped the news while in the middle ofdirectingOverwatch2’s development.
Since that time, it’s still unclear what exactly prompted Kaplan’s departure, and while his replacement, Aaron Keller, the formerOverwatchAssistant Game Director, doesn’t give any more insight into the situation than Kaplan did, he has gone ahead and spoken more about what Kaplan’s departure means forOverwatchmoving forward. Speaking with GameSpot in a recent interview, Keller spoke about how he plans to handleOverwatchnow that he sits in the director’s chair.
REALTED:Former Overwatch Director Jeff Kaplan Sends Message to Sombra Actor
In the simplest of terms, Keller plans to handle things differently from Kaplan. In his own words, Keller doesn’t possess the same strengths or weaknesses Kaplan does; they’re different people. He goes on to emphasize that while Kaplan inadvertently took all of the praise — and blame — forOverwatch, fansshouldn’t worry about the game collapsing without his presence. Keller and the rest of theOverwatchteam are game design veterans who love the title and plan to do it justice.
Fans that hoped Keller would explain why Kaplan left are out of luck, as he doesn’t say. The lack of transparency on that front makes it hard to believe thatJeff Kaplan departed Blizzardfor any other reason aside from creative differences concerningOverwatch2’s development. Even though it’s possible, it seems unlikely that Kaplan woke up one morning and decided he wanted nothing more to do with the game. Regardless, he’s put his faith in Keller by asking theOverwatchcommunity to support the development team.
Keller managing to meet the expectations of overseeingOverwatchremains unseen, but there’s no reason to believe that he won’t. As he says himself, he has all of the experience needed to handle the job, and beyond that,Overwatch’s development teamis still the same. Keller will handle routine tasks differently from Kaplin; for instance, he plans on addressing the community differently, possibly cycling through the team members that do it, but it’s not likeOverwatchwill become unrecognizable at its core.
Overwatch 2is in development for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
