Korean Overwatch 2 insider shares bad news about PvE and Jeff Kaplan’s departure

An Overwatch 2 insider claiming to know why Jeff Kaplan left Blizzard and the state of the game’s upcoming PvE mode.

On May 10, a Korean YouTuber uploaded a video detailing many controversies at Blizzard regarding the development of Overwatch 2 and how Jeff Kaplan seemingly opposed the live-service element.

According to details translated by Redditor ‘tcgtms,’ the original Overwatch was not designed as a live-service game and only when the game became a massive hit did the team add more heroes and maps than planned.

“They shipped the product with the mindset that once this has been released they can just tweak minor things like a non-live service game,” they explained, noting how this approach was in effect when work began on Overwatch 2.

Insider reveals Overwatch 2 development issues

The report goes on to claim that Jeff Kaplan and others on the team viewed Overwatch 2’s PvE as being the primary focus to leaving Overwatch 1 the same with little in the way of updates that made sense.

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When the PvE portion of Overwatch 2 fell into development hell, there was pressure from Activision-Blizzard’s leadership to get the game out, resulting in Jeff Kaplan leaving.

The source credits Walter Kong, who came from Epic Games, as making the call to split Overwatch 2’s PvE and PvP to get the game out sooner, claiming that this is why the beta feels so “barebones” to some.

“Without a change in leadership to Walter, OW players would not have had any hands-on experience with OW2. The only thing they would have seen was endless delays in both showing and delivering the game,” the insider alleged.

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Essentially, the insider claimed that Overwatch 2 will have more of a “live service” model akin to games such as Fortnite and Warzone despite it originally not being designed as such.

As always, take these reports with a grain of salt, but if true, it could indicate exactly why Jeff Kaplan left Blizzard and why we haven’t seen much in the way of Overwatch 2’s PvE.