As of today, the man, the myth, the meme Jeff Kaplan is not a member of the Overwatch Team – or Blizzard.
Blizzard made the announcement in a blog post today. Kaplan’s director’s chair is occupied by Aaron Keller, an 18 year old Blizzard veteran who worked on it Overwatch and World of Warcraft. The company also delivered one final letter from Kaplan, albeit sadly not in the form of a long, amiable, Rambic video, for the sake of the old days.
“I’m leaving Blizzard Entertainment after 19 amazing years,” wrote Kaplan with no capitalization, a veritable change of power (Kotaku has made slight changes in the name of readability.). “It was truly the honor of your life to have the opportunity to create worlds and heroes for such a passionate audience. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to everyone at Blizzard who has supported our games, our game teams and our players. But I would like to especially thank the wonderful game developers who took part with me on the journey of creation. “
In his own note, Keller said he was “not entitled to fill Jeff’s shoes” but that he had worked with Kaplan for years and was “honored to take the torch with him.” Keller also spoke about the status of Overwatch 2.
“Speaking of which Overwatch 2Development continues at a good pace, ”he wrote. “We have an extraordinary vision that we are implementing. We have been delighted by the response from many of you to the updates we posted on BlizzConline. We have exciting revelations planned for this year and beyond as we make our way to launch. We’ll be sharing updates about more frequently Overwatch 2 Progress and new features in live play with all of you very soon. “
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Kaplan ended his parting note with some encouraging words.
“Never accept the world as it seems,” he said. “Always dare to see it as it could be. I hope you do the same ”
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