'I Just Sort of Disconnect' — Jeff Kaplan Goes to Great Lengths to Avoid Overwatch

Former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan has revealed how he safeguards his mental well-being by steering clear of online discussions and subreddits about Blizzard's hero shooter.

If you're a dedicated Overwatch player, you're probably familiar with Jeff Kaplan. He was the face of the game for years, winning over fans with his regular developer updates and memorable interactions with the community.

After departing Blizzard in 2021, Kaplan established his own game development studio and is currently working on an open-world action-survival shooter called The Legend of California. He has firmly moved on from Overwatch — so much so that he avoids engaging with it online at all costs.

"With Overwatch, I had a very almost clinical separation, knowing how the WoW thing had gone," Kaplan said in a recent interview with GameSpot. "I've literally not played the game since April 2021.

"I don't, for my own psyche, I don't read the subreddits. After I said my goodbye to competitive Overwatch and the Overwatch subreddit, I never go back and read. I don't watch YouTube [videos]. I don't search for my name in Overwatch. I don't search for Overwatch. I sort of just disconnect. I actually tell all the algorithms like, 'Yeah, I'm not really interested in Overwatch anymore. I know you think I'm the Overwatch guy, but like, that's just not for me anymore.'"

He told the outlet that leaving the World of Warcraft team to work on Overwatch was surprisingly more painful than putting the hero shooter behind him, calling it a "training moment" for taking the next step in his career.

"WoW was who I was at that point," he explained. "I worked every minute, every waking minute, on WoW. If I wasn't working on WoW, I was playing WoW. And every time I played WoW, I had this notepad next to the desk that I'd be filling out to walk in the next morning and go, 'These are all the things we need to change.' It was kind of shocking in a very negative emotional way to step away from WoW, because it was such a part of who I was and how I identified. It was who I was as a game developer."

After learning the hard way that the games he worked on didn't belong to him, but were instead an IP under Blizzard's ownership, it was easier for him to move forward.

"Overwatch happened. I was a part of it. There's a group there now, and Overwatch is now about them. Both the players and the developers, that's their Overwatch now. They're making it, they own it, they play it. I'm onto this new thing, and that's where I'm at in my life," he said.

Kaplan hasn't shied away from sharing his thoughts on the current gaming industry since making his exit from Blizzard almost half a decade ago. Most recently, he had some harsh words for players who complain about games they'll never actually play.

"If a game comes out, and you don't want to play it, and you've never played it? Shut the f*** up. No one cares," he said.

And in March, he revealed the reason why he actually left Blizzard behind, describing a specific meeting that he called "the biggest f*** you moment I had in my career."

Image Credits: James Sheppard/Edge Magazine/Future via Getty Images