Jeff Kaplan Leaving Blizzard - New Leadership for Overwatch

[Lumy]

New Leadership for Overwatch

We want to let you know that Jeff Kaplan has decided to leave the company after a long and storied career here, and that Aaron Keller, a Blizzard veteran and founding member of the Overwatch team, will be stepping in as game director.

Aaron has been a critical part of the Overwatch team and a key driver in creating the vision for the game. He helped create Overwatch as an original member of the team, and as an 18-year veteran at Blizzard, he has worked side-by-side with Jeff for a long time, not only in building Overwatch but previously in helping to build WoW as well. A few words from Aaron:

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

We’re also tremendously grateful for Jeff’s contributions over the years. Please see a personal note from Jeff below:

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

You’ll hear more from Aaron and the rest of the Overwatch team soon. In the meantime, please join us in thanking Jeff, and in welcoming Aaron into his new role.

[Kralljin]

Dun, dun, dun, Another one bites the dust.

[Assumi]

Cue the MMO-Champion comment section version of Baghdad Bob to ensure us all everything is of course totally fine at Blizzard

[Azerox]

Everyone is running away @ Blizz.

[Unholyground]

Everyone is running away @ Blizz.

Because people want to make real games not mobile titles.

[SinR]

Meanwhile, at Blizzard HQ:

[ParanoiD84]

Most if not all of the OG's are gone now i believe.

[Orby]

Meanwhile, at Blizzard HQ:

The dog was let go, its just fire now :P

[glowpipe]

Dreamhaven is becoming bigger by the second

[SinR]

The dog was let go, its just fire now :P

No, its a different intern dog now

[Exkrementor]

Be a company full of gamers who make games for gamers -> get big and get bought by evil money grabbing company -> make shit for 10 years -> all the good people leave and make a company that makes games for gamers again-> repeat.

[dope_danny]

One more blizzard employee running to the on the nose Dreamhaven i imagine. In general its just another reminder this is a zombie develop puppeted by out of touch shareholder targeting techboomers under activision but it also probably aint doing any favours to dispelling the rumours Overwatch 2 is in a lot of trouble behind the scenes.

[kaintk]

oh, another one going to dreamhaven ?

- - - Updated - - -

One more blizzard employee running to the on the nose Dreamhaven i imagine. In general its just another reminder this is a zombie develop puppeted by out of touch shareholder targeting techboomers under activision but it also probably aint doing any favours to dispelling the rumours Overwatch 2 is in a lot of trouble behind the scenes.

dreamhaven will be an epic business again (blizzard 2.0)

i just hope they will make new epic game again and not falling in the cash hole trap this time again

[Lahkesis]

things at blizzard corporate really are that bad huh.

Yes, they are. Most of my friends/gaming circle who worked there have left and the overall morale at the company is devastatingly poor at the moment and has been for a while.

[Djibrill]

Mike, it's your turn.

[kaintk]

Yes, they are. Most of my friends/gaming circle who worked there have left and the overall morale at the company is devastatingly poor at the moment and has been for a while.

blizzard is only the cow money for activision at this point, diablo 4 is the last light left but im sure that 1 year after the release, the game will be another cash cow and be bad

[Sanguinerd]

A friend of my uncles plumber also has a cousin working at Blizzard and he can confirm the overall morale is devastatingly poor.

Best of luck Jeff!

[RoKPaNda]

I hear that he has done great things for Overwatch, which I've never gotten into, it's just not my kind of FPS game, but I'm not really sad to see him leave Blizzard because it means that we don't have to worry about him touching WoW. I can't tell you how glad I am that he found his passion with Overwatch, but that man shouldn't be let anywhere near a modern MMO. It isn't 2003 anymore. Based on interviews with him that I've watched and his famous Blizzcon presentation, he had no idea what it was that originally made WoW successful and his ideas of what made a good MMO could have easily tanked WoW in the modern era if he had been left to call the shots. I wish him nothing but the best though. Hopefully he has a bright future in the industry or in whatever industry he wants.

oke, the fact that jeff is dipping before his inevitable sequel bonus is gigantic lmao. things at blizzard corporate really are that bad huh. i love his message tho, i'm emo that uncle jeff wants us to change the world <3

Either that or he knows that OW2 is in trouble.

blizzard is only the cow money for activision at this point, diablo 4 is the last light left but im sure that 1 year after the release, the game will be another cash cow and be bad

You mean it isn't any of Activision's other franchises like COD that are just raking in free money? If anything I'm actually hoping for Activision to take more of a hand in how Blizzard operates and/or get some new blood into Blizzard as a lot of the old blood leaves, because it's been evident for some time now that Blizzard is out of touch with what gamers want and Activision isn't quite as out of touch.

[Varolyn]

These days Activistion is worse than EA... almost killing Bungie, seemingly killing blizzard, hyper focused on mobile market, does everything it can to avoid controversy/legal issues with micro transactions. EA is a scummy company no doubt... But they have given their child companies at least some leeway in developing games while idk what is going on with Acti-Blizz.

[Kathranis]

Dreamhaven is becoming bigger by the second

Is it confirmed he's going to Dreamhaven? He was both a VP and game director at Blizzard, working on his own brainchild at that. It's hard to imagine him moving to another developer unless he can head up his own studio and projects.