Steven R. December 22, 2018
Overwatch fans may not have heard from him in a while, but Blizzard Vice President Jeff Kaplan wants fans to know that everything is going to be OK.
Responding to concerns over “developer silence” on the official Overwatch forums, Kaplan said that the team behind the popular shooter isn’t trying to be quiet. There just isn’t much they’re at liberty to talk about at this time.
“We don’t like being silent… that’s not our intention. We’ve been trying to show up more on various streams (we have our creator’s residency now here at Blizzard where streamers hang out with us) plus we did a bunch of streams at Blizzcon,” Kaplan said. “I guess, mostly, we don’t have a big newsworthy thing to announce or talk about right now so we’re more focused on ‘getting stuff done’ rather than anything else.”
The Overwatch development team has historically kept fans informed as to what is coming down the pipe, but communications have been scarce in the last two months. There hasn’t been a developer update on the Play Overwatch YouTube channel since November 5, a notable departure from the usual two videos per month that has been the norm this year.
Kaplan says the crew is still hard at work despite the hush. Travel surrounding Thanksgiving saw a reduced workforce, with the team that stayed behind working on some theoretical new features and that fans are unlikely to see any time soon.
Kaplan also noted that the lack of chattiness partly stems from the team working on “top secret stuff” that he is “not allowed to talk about.”
Though fans may have been unnerved about the lack of developer updates, there has still been plenty going on with Overwatch. The Winter Wonderland event is currently underway and the build towards the second Overwatch League season is in full swing.
Fans might have to wait a bit to find out what these new secret projects are, but there will be plenty to keep them occupied in the meantime.