Most Overwatch fans view Jeff Kaplan as the backbone of the franchise and, therefore, blame him for the game's failures and praise him for its successes. So naturally, it took most of them off guard when, last week, Kaplan announced his departure from Blizzard — and by extension his position as Overwatch's director — with little to no explanation as to why. It didn't help that he dropped the news while in the middle of directing Overwatch2's development.
Since that time, it's still unclear what exactly prompted Kaplan's departure, and while his replacement, Aaron Keller, the former Overwatch Assistant Game Director, doesn't give any more insight into the situation than Kaplan did, he has gone ahead and spoken more about what Kaplan's departure means for Overwatch moving forward. Speaking with GameSpot in a recent interview, Keller spoke about how he plans to handle Overwatch now that he sits in the director's chair.
In the simplest of terms, Keller plans to handle things differently from Kaplan. In his own words, Keller doesn't possess the same strengths or weaknesses Kaplan does; they're different people. He goes on to emphasize that while Kaplan inadvertently took all of the praise — and blame — for Overwatch, fans shouldn't worry about the game collapsing without his presence. Keller and the rest of the Overwatch team are game design veterans who love the title and plan to do it justice.
Fans that hoped Keller would explain why Kaplan left are out of luck, as he doesn't say. The lack of transparency on that front makes it hard to believe that Jeff Kaplan departed Blizzard for any other reason aside from creative differences concerning Overwatch2's development. Even though it's possible, it seems unlikely that Kaplan woke up one morning and decided he wanted nothing more to do with the game. Regardless, he's put his faith in Keller by asking the Overwatch community to support the development team.
Keller managing to meet the expectations of overseeing Overwatch remains unseen, but there's no reason to believe that he won't. As he says himself, he has all of the experience needed to handle the job, and beyond that, Overwatch's development team is still the same. Keller will handle routine tasks differently from Kaplin; for instance, he plans on addressing the community differently, possibly cycling through the team members that do it, but it's not like Overwatch will become unrecognizable at its core.
Overwatch 2 is in development for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: GameSpot