Overwatch 2 Dev Says Jeff Kaplan Originally Envisioned Sequel to Prioritize PvE
Amid the developing events regarding Activision Blizzard, CEO Bobby Kotick, the ABK Workers Alliance, and the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing's lawsuit, an Overwatch 2 developer has shared some tidbits about former Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan's original vision for the upcoming sequel.
With Overwatch 2 remaining delayed indefinitely, there are certainly plenty of questions from the community regarding the game's development. Earlier this week, Overwatch producer Tracy Kennedy took to Twitter to shed some light on several of those topics from their vantage point.
That wasn't ABK. Kaplan had a vision of an OW game with PVE in it from before the original game launched. He wanted OW2 to be a sequel to get non-PVP players to consider trying the game out for the PVE. He felt very strongly about that.
— Tracy Kennedy ?✊ (@dogspinster) November 17, 2021
As spotted first by Dexerto, on Nov. 17, Kennedy answered several questions regarding Kaplan in a thread of Tweets, including his original vision for Overwatch 2.
When asked why more of the lore and PvE content of the game had to wait for Overwatch 2 to be imagined, instead of being included in something such as a major patch for the original title, Kennedy cleared up that the move wasn't done with pure monetization in mind or out of pressure from Activision Blizzard.
According to Kennedy, Kaplan had a vision for Overwatch to have PvE in it even before the original game launched, and that he "felt strongly" about having the sequel prioritize catering to non-PVP players.
Kennedy also went on to mention that from their experience working with Kaplan, he was a "great guy" who "hated corporate BS," "fought it until the bitter end" and even hinted at it when he decided to resign from Blizzard Entertainment.
"When the Overwatch directors resigned," Kennedy said on Twitter, "they pointedly made comments about the company's 'cultural issues' in their goodbye speeches. The subtext was that ABK's culture is at odds with our team's culture, and that [they] didn't think they could fix it with the current leadership."
ABK's corporate culture and business pressures to do things he felt would compromise the game or the devs. His philosophy was to shield us from it and that's why we have the good team we do, but now the toxicity is quite public and many have left from the shock of it.
— Tracy Kennedy ?✊ (@dogspinster) November 16, 2021
While Overwatch 2 is still expected to have a full PvE campaign at launch, it will be interesting to see just to what extent how much of Kaplan's original emphasis on non-PvP content is actually executed.