Leaks Demoralized Overwatch 2 Team, Game Director Says

Attendees of this year’s BlizzCon noticed that Jeff Kaplan was not really happy with all leaks finding their way online ahead of time. And for him, these are “demoralizing” the entire team.

Blizzard finally confirmed Overwatch 2 at Blizzcon 2019 on Friday. But as far as giving out information about the game, Kaplan revealed details that were already known ahead of time because of leaks.

Of course, it is not like Kaplan doesn't have experience with major leaks in his career. However, he could not help but suggest how heartbroken he was to see much of the studio’s work leak before they had the opportunity to reveal it to fans and players.

“Leaks are very interesting in that they have more of a moral impact on the team than anything else. It’s extremely demoralizing. You feel totally deflated,” Kaplan said in an interview with Kotaku. “When you’re trying so hard to deliver something for somebody and to have it be spoiled in a way that’s not coherent, that’s the part that bothers us the most, where people are not given all the information and all of the context that they need to understand what we’re doing.”

Kaplan also went on to say that when people started making comments about game art based on leaks, the artist responsible for creating the work felt disheartened.

“They take such care to make the art look beautiful, and then we get some crappy version of what the art looks like … and then people are like, ‘I don’t know it doesn’t look that good’ and we’re like, no it does, it looks amazing! It’s just a crappy screenshot that someone took, so it can be a bit demoralizing,” Kaplan said.

In case you did not know, Kaplan was part of the team that built World of Warcraft’s The Burning Crusade expansion. Unfortunately, it was leaked just a week prior to BlizzCon. That is why he knew exactly what he was saying.

“If you fast-forward to 2019, everybody looks back at Burning Crusade as one of WoW’s strongest moments, their favorite expansions, and nobody remembers that Burning Crusade was leaked at all,” he revealed.