Former Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan said he has not touched the popular team-shooter in five years for the sake of his mental health. During his time with Blizzard as the company’s vice president, Kaplan was an instrumental figure across both Overwatch and World of Warcraft during the foundational years for both games.
Kaplan got his start at Blizzard in 2002 as a tester for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. He was then placed on the World of Warcraft development team as a designer before becoming the game’s director during 2008’s Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Kaplan was later moved over to Project Titan, a canceled game that saw some elements utilized for Overwatch. Prior to the game’s relaunch as Overwatch 2, Kaplan left Blizzard in April 2021. The last Hero that was released under Kaplan’s watch was Echo in April 2020.
Jeff Kaplan Has Not Kept Up With Overwatch in Five Years
Although Overwatch has released new Heroes such as Doctrine since Kaplan left the Irvine-based studio, the game’s former lead said that he was not familiar with the state of the game. In an October 14 interview with GameSpot, Kaplan said that he has not followed Blizzard’s hero shooter at all following his departure from Blizzard after a career that spanned over two decades. The ex-director said that his relationship with Overwatch is a “clinical separation” that was done for his own mental health. Kaplan refuses to read any posts on social media about the game, view any news that Blizzard puts out about the game, or even look up his own name in relation to the series.
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Kaplan said that, while he remained proud of what he helped create, he believed that the current iteration of Overwatch now belongs to the current development team and to the players that log into the game each day. In a separate interview conducted in March 2026, Kaplan revealed that one reason for his departure from Blizzard was due to layoff threats he endured from the company’s top brass in 2020. Kaplan said that the CFO he spoke with at the time told him that 1,000 potential layoffs would be blamed on the ex-Overwatch director should the game fall short of financial expectations. While the company’s CFO at the time of the threat has since left Blizzard, Kaplan said that the damage had already been done.
Since leaving Blizzard Entertainment, Kaplan has gone on to form an independent game studio called Kintsugiyama. The studio’s first title is called The Legend of California, an open-world action survival title that takes place in the 19th century, during California’s Gold Rush era. Multiplayer testing for The Legend of California was held in March 2026 to select players. As of this writing, the game remains in active development, with a fifth alpha test scheduled to run from November 12 to 18.
As for Overwatch, Blizzard also reworked Sombra and Roadhog as part of the launch of Season 5. With the Reign of Talon story arc coming to a close, time will tell what else Blizzard has planned as 2027 draws near.
- Released
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August 10, 2023
- ESRB
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Teen / Violence, Blood, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)
