Jeff Kaplan’s departure from the position of Overwatch game director won’t stop the team-based shooter from further improvements, according to Blizzard, as it will reportedly receive some big changes and new features soon. Last week, the company announced Kaplan was leaving Overwatch after almost two decades at the studio.
The unexpected announcement post was accompanied by a note from Kaplan, who shared a few words about his 19 years at Blizzard, saying creating for such a passionate audience was "the honor of a lifetime." Kaplan hasn’t yet provided any specific reasons as to why he decided to part ways with the company. In Kaplan's place, founding Overwatch team member Aaron Keller stepped in as game director, promising Overwatch 2's development "is continuing at a good pace."
In a recent interview with GameSpot, Keller shared more promising bits of information about the series' future. According to Keller, Blizzard is working to introduce some "really big features and systems" to the Overwatch live game soon. Although he didn’t delve deeper into specifics, Keller did say the coming updates will be "As big as anything [Blizzard has] built for this game" so far, adding that a "massive" amount of resources "across almost every aspect" of the team has been poured into the changes. He didn't reveal any ETA for the features, but he did stress that, "Hopefully," the team will have the opportunity to talk about them in the near future.
Although it's Kaplan who has been strongly associated with Overwatch through the years, the game is understandably moving on without such an important personality on board. After all, developing a huge video game is a collective effort that involves hundreds of professionals. Still, Kaplan will be strongly missed by Overwatch fans, mainly due to his open communication with the community - something Keller appears to be carrying forward. The community post and follow-up interview seem to indicate fans will continue to be informed of crucial steps in Overwatch's development.
In the meantime, it's good to know the original Overwatch is still getting some attention from the development team, considering Overwatch 2 has likely taken over as the top priority. But it’s been quite some time since the sequel was revealed, and fans haven’t been seen any big updates on Overwatch 2's production in almost as long. Blizzard did promise earlier this year to deliver Overwatch 2 news in March or April, but it has yet to do so. Kaplan’s sudden departure could be to blame for postponed information.
Source: GameSpot