Jeff Kaplan Details His Shift From Overwatch Director to Indie Developer

Why Kaplan Left Blizzard

Jeff Kaplan joined Blizzard Entertainment in May 2002 as a quest designer on World of Warcraft, later becoming a game director on the MMO before moving to the project that became Overwatch, which launched in 2016 and generated more than $1 billion in revenue in its first year, according to Wikipedia's summary of his career.

Kaplan left Blizzard in April 2021 after nearly two decades at the company. In a 2026 account cited by Wikipedia and reported by Engadget, Kaplan said the decisive factor was pressure from leadership tied to a downturn in the Overwatch League around 2020: management reportedly told him that if Overwatch 2 did not hit certain revenue targets, the publisher would lay off roughly 1,000 people, and he would bear responsibility for that outcome.

Five Years Of Silence, Then A New Studio

After leaving, Kaplan did not speak publicly about his plans for about five years. He broke that silence with an extensive appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast in March 2026, where he discussed his Blizzard career and confirmed he had founded a new independent studio, Kintsugiyama, according to Wikipedia and GameRant. Kotaku reported that fellow Blizzard veteran Tim Ford is also part of the studio.

Kintsugiyama employs 34 people, Kotaku reported — a fraction of the size of a typical AAA production team. The studio's debut project, The Legend of California, is being published by Dreamhaven, the company founded by former Blizzard president Mike Morhaime, according to Kotaku and Engadget.

Kaplan has also been candid about tighter resources at an independent studio. Asked about adding a feature to The Legend of California, he said the studio currently cannot afford it, PC Gamer reported.

What The Legend Of California Is

The Legend of California is an open-world, Western-themed action-survival shooter set during a 19th-century gold rush on a fictional island version of California. Players can hunt, mine, craft and build ranches, playing solo or in groups of up to four, with optional PvP combat layered on top of cooperative survival, according to Engadget and Fandomwire.

The game's hand-crafted biomes are arranged with randomized elements, so the location and difficulty of different areas vary from server to server, Engadget reported. Kotaku added that the visual direction draws on 19th-century landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, a deliberate departure from the fantasy and science-fiction worlds Kaplan worked on at Blizzard.

On base-building, Kaplan said the game currently plays closer to Valheim and Subnautica, though he wants to add Rust-style mechanics eventually, describing Rust's world-reset system as a mechanic he would like to build on, according to GamesRadar and Fandomwire.

A Quieter Public Role

Kaplan has taken a hands-on, lower-key approach to publicizing the game, including a public alpha signup period and no large marketing campaign, Fandomwire reported. He has also engaged directly with players during livestreams; in one instance, he pushed back on viewers who criticized games they had not played, a moment covered by The Outer Haven.

Independent coverage has not reported an exact size for Kaplan's former Blizzard teams, so there is no sourced figure to directly compare against Kintsugiyama's 34-person roster. Full release details for The Legend of California beyond the planned 2026 Steam early-access window have not been published.