Former Overwatch Lead Jeff Kaplan Describes Years of Clashes at Blizzard

Former Overwatch lead Jeff Kaplan says he effectively lost control of the game's development from 2018 onwards. In an interview on the Gaming World Interviews YouTube channel, he described constant fighting with Blizzard's executive staff over the direction of the game, as VGC reported.

Kaplan spent 19 years at Blizzard Entertainment before he left in 2021. Overwatch is a team shooter in which each player picks a hero, a character with its own set of abilities.

According to Kaplan, the friction began with a change at the top. J. Allen Brack became Blizzard president in 2018, the year the disputes started. Kaplan said he had no issues with Brack's predecessor, Mike Morhaime.

Kaplan also said he was vocally against announcing Overwatch 2 in 2019. His reason was that the team did not know what the game would be or what its business model would look like. A business model is the way a game earns money, such as up-front sales, subscriptions or in-game purchases.

He added that Blizzard tried to get him to sell heroes. He described paywalled heroes, characters that players must pay to unlock, as a mandate, and said it was a line he was unwilling to cross.

VGC has also reported on how heroes were unlocked when Overwatch 2 launched. New heroes could be unlocked through the battle pass, a reward track that players progress through over a season. Paying players could unlock them instantly, while free players faced a longer grind. That system was later phased out, and new heroes now unlock instantly.

Kaplan's comments add a behind-the-scenes account of how Overwatch 2 took shape. Overwatch 2 is a live-service game, meaning it is sold and updated in seasons after launch rather than being finished at release.