Kaplan's Clean Break: Ex-Overwatch Director Deliberately Avoids Game He Built

Jeff Kaplan hasn't played Overwatch since April 2021, and he's making sure he never accidentally encounters it online. The former game director, who shaped the hero shooter's identity for years through developer updates and community interactions, now actively blocks Overwatch content from his feeds and refuses to read fan discussions about the game.

Kaplan, who founded his own studio to develop The Legend of California, treats his departure from Blizzard as a complete severance. He explained that watching World of Warcraft slip away years earlier taught him a painful lesson: the games he created weren't his to keep. Armed with that experience, he's compartmentalized Overwatch differently, viewing it as a project that now belongs entirely to its current team and players.

"I'm onto this new thing, and that's where I'm at in my life," he said in a recent interview with GameSpot. Kaplan has maintained vocal opinions on industry trends since leaving, but keeps his distance from the franchise that defined much of his career.