Former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan says he hasn’t played or searched for it since leaving Blizzard five years ago
Kaplan says he has a “healthy separation” where Overwatch is no longer part of his life
Former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan says he’s completely cut ties with the game since he left Blizzard five years ago.
Kaplan left the company in April 2021 after 19 years working there, while Overwatch 2 was still in development.
In a new interview with Gamespot, he was asked what his relationship was with the series now, and whether he ever plays it and still has a soft side for it because it was his ‘baby’.
Kaplan replied that he had completely cut ties with the game, but that he handled better than he could have, because he had already been through it with World of Warcraft and knew what feelings to expect this time.
“Oddly, leaving World of Warcraft was a training moment for me,” he explained. When I left WoW to work on [the later cancelled] Titan it was, I think, November or December of 2008. And WoW was who I was at that point.
“I worked every minute – every waking minute – on WoW. If I wasn’t working on WoW, I was playing WoW. And every time I played WoW, I had this notepad next to the desk that I’d be filling out to walk in the next morning and go ‘these are all the things we need to change’.
“It was kind of shocking in a very negative emotional way to step away from WoW, because it was such a part of who I was and how I identified. It was who I was as a game developer.
“I kind of went through a little bit of shock leaving WoW back in 2008. So, when I stepped away from Overwatch in April of 2021, I was kind of used to that moment of what it meant to give all of yourself, your heart, your soul – because it’s not just a job, there’s no one who can do this and have it just be a job – and then have this shocking moment where you realize it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the team, belongs to the players, it belongs to Blizzard, but it doesn’t belong to you.
“And with Overwatch, I had a very almost clinical separation, knowing how the WoW thing had gone. I’ve literally not played the game since April 2021.”
Explaining that he has made efforts to make sure Overwatch isn’t a part of his life, Kaplan said he was still proud of everything he and his team had done, but he didn’t want to be someone constantly looking back at past glories.
“For my own psyche, I don’t read the subreddits,” he explained. “After I said my goodbye to competitive Overwatch and the Overwatch subreddit, I never go back and read.
“I don’t watch YouTube [videos]. I don’t search for my name in Overwatch. I don’t search for Overwatch. I sort of just disconnect. I actually tell all the algorithms, like, ‘yeah, I’m not really interested in Overwatch anymore, I know you think I’m the Overwatch guy, but that’s just not for me anymore’.
Further reading
“And I just do that for a healthy separation. I do have those moments, very emotional [moments], where sometimes I’ll see a picture from BlizzCon 2014, where we announced Overwatch. It is, to this day, one of the most special days in my life, you know?
“Watching Chris go out there and announce it, and getting to follow it up with him. The way my team felt about it. I’m so immensely proud of everything that everybody at Blizzard, not just Team 4, did to make Overwatch a great game. Like, SNFD, or Story and Franchise Development, the cinematics group at Blizzard. [It is] the most talented cinematics group in the history of video games.
“I still have so much pride, I hold all those people in the highest regard. But just for my own sanity… Have you ever seen Napoleon Dynamite? Okay, there’s that character, Uncle Rico, who’s like, ‘I was good at football,’ and he’s always like out there, like watching the old videotapes of himself. I don’t want to be Uncle Rico!
“Overwatch happened. I was a part of it. There’s a group there now and Overwatch is now about them. Both the players and the developers, that’s their Overwatch now. They’re making it, they own it, they play it. I’m onto this new thing, and that’s where I’m at in my life.”
