Jeff Kaplan - Tumblr Posts

Overwatch 2 Theories: Overwatch 2 without Jeff Kaplan

Most people who have been in the Overwatch community for even a few months probably know Jeff Kaplan. He was the Vice President of Blizzard Entertainment and he was the Game Director of Overwatch which meant that he was working a lot on Overwatch 2. Today we learned that Jeff Kaplan will be stepping down from his roles in Blizzard after 19 years and Aaron Keller will be replacing him as the Game Director of Overwatch.

I have seen a lot of people worried about what is going to happen to Overwatch on Twitter, but I have a different perspective that I would like to talk about. This is a long post and mostly my opinion on stuff, so you can just check out the Overwatch Twitter post as well as the official Blizzard post about the new leadership in the Overwatch team for the straight-up information.

Anyways, I am still getting through some stuff in my personal life, so I'll hopefully be making a post about a cut map soonish. Now, let me explain.

Jeff Kaplan Leaving: I am going to miss Jeff Kaplan, he was so passionate about Overwatch, and hearing him and other members of the Overwatch team talk was really inspiring. With that all said, he has been part of Blizzard for 19 years and it seems that he left on his own volition, so I think that if he wanted to leave, I'm glad that he did whatever he thought would be best for himself.

Overwatch 2 won't be Good: I saw a lot of people on Twitter saying that Overwatch 2 was going to be trash since Jeff Kaplan left, but I really don't agree. Yes, he made Overwatch better, but after seeing Blizzcon 2021, I'm not worried. Listening to everyone else on the Overwatch team, we should know that Jeff Kaplan wasn't the only person pushing Overwatch 2, so I think saying that Kaplan leaving is bad for the game is discrediting everyone else on the team.

Aaron Keller being Game Director: Going off of what I said before about Twitter's opinion about OW2, I do hope people realize that Aaron Keller was on the Overwatch team before becoming Game Director (he was in Blizzconline, look at the image below). He was the person who announced that Rome is a new map. So, I'm pretty excited that he is becoming the new Game Director since he has also been a part of Blizzard and the Overwatch team for a while.

Aaron Keller working on OW2: I think that this is the thing that I am most excited about. In his statement about this situation, he says, "Speaking of Overwatch 2, development is continuing at a good pace... we have exciting reveals planned for this year and beyond as we ramp to launch... We’ll be sharing more frequent updates about Overwatch 2 progress and new features in the live game with you all very soon." SO YEAH! We are going to be getting more reveals about Overwatch 2 this year, which, I want more but that guarantee makes me a little happier. Also, there are going to be "new features in the live game" which makes me think we are either going to get more content during events, more events, or maybe a new character/new map. I know they said that Echo was going to be the last big thing in OW, but with COVID-19 and everything else, let's hope the team feels like giving us more content.

So... yeah! I hope you all are doing well, I'm really glad that you all like my posts, I don't have too many people in my personal life that I can talk to about Overwatch and this has been a really good outlet for me. Also, thank you so much for 43 followers! I would like to do more QnA stuff since I've only done it once, but it really gave me a lot to think about, so if you have any questions, ideas, or anything else Overwatch-related, please ask, I'll respond as soon as I can. Have a good rest of the week, bye! ~ Nova

Overwatch 2 Theories: Blackwatch Tank Corrections

While I was researching for my post about a possible Overwatch Strike team, I learned something about an image I used. On my post about an ex-Blackwatch tank, I used the image below on the left as a reference, but the thing is that we know who that is, or should I say, was supposed to be.

The character in both images is called Wildebeest. He was one of the original characters pitched for Prometheus(Titan) which became Overwatch. Parts of his design helped create Reinhardt, Orisa, and Brigitte. His size and shield would connect him to Reinhardt, his horns and nationality would connect him to Orisa(he is supposed to be from Numbani), and his flail weapon connects him to Brigitte. I think that his concept art is really cool, and I might do a theory on him in the future since I now know more about him(it might be more of a mini-theory).

Anyways, I will be posting about the Overwatch League soon, and I will be making a post about Aaron Keller's first Game Director Developer update!

Game Developer Update

I just finished watching Aaron Keller's(and his team's) first developer update. This is just about the most important points from the two-hour event.

PvP(Quickplay, some Arcade, Competitive) will be 5v5. It will be 1 Tank, 2 DPS, 2 Support. I am not happy about it, being a D.Va main. It will kill the Offtank role in competitive and a lot of Offtank players in OWL will lose their jobs.

We got some more looks at the new maps which were really cool. We saw New York City(Hybrid), Rio de Janeiro(Hybrid), Monte Carlo(Escort), Rome(Push), and Toronto(Push).

In New York City, there are a couple references to Jeff Kaplan which I think is really sweet.

We got to see Torbjorn's new Overwatch 2 look.

Also, we got to see a bunch of concept art for all of the new maps. All of the art is by Patrick Faulwetter.