Ahead of BlizzCon 2019 this past weekend, one of the biggest announcements of the show - the Overwatch 2 reveal - was leaked on the internet. Not just the news that the game was going to be announced, but a whole stack of details about its new story mode, essentially the reason why Overwatch 2 exists. The game's director, Jeff Kaplan, has now spoken about the effect that leak, and others like it, has on the teams making the games.
"Leaks are very interesting in that they have more of a moral impact on the team than anything else," Kaplan told Kotaku Australia. "It's extremely demoralising. You feel totally deflated."
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Kaplan explains this isn't just because the team doesn't get to reveal the game after all their hard work, but because game announcements are tightly structured to get across the information players need. For instance, after the leak of Overwatch 2, players wanted to know how the new game would fit in with the original. Would their progress be wiped? Would they need to buy Overwatch 2 to play with their friends? How would the upgrades in story mode impact the multiplayer?
"When you're trying so hard to deliver something for somebody and to have it be spoiled in a way that's not coherent," Kaplan said. "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's no stranger to leaks. In the same interview he recalls how, in the week ahead of BlizzCon in 2006, the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion was revealed by an Italian magazine. It not only announced the expansion's existence but went into detail about the systems and locations that were coming with it. However, as Kaplan points out, no one really remembers that now - they just remember the expansion, suggesting that in the long run leaks don't damage a game.
Featured Image Credit: Blizzard EntertainmentTopics: Activision Blizzard, Blizzard Entertainment, Overwatch 2