I just discovered in the personal social media of Alyssa Wong, who has served on the creative writing team for Overwatch, has recently departed Blizzard. No details were posted, but the post was energetic and positive. It sounds like she has departed to pursue other opportunities. I know that she is also a comic book author for Marvel comics.
Please note, Jeff Kaplan did mention during the Reddit AMA last week that they had hired Jeff Chamberlain to fulfill the Creative Director Position which was vacated by Michael Chu earlier this year.
Please note, I choose to post this information as an effort to provide accurate information regarding any lore development discussions. As Jeff Kaplan mentioned, more lore is coming. I do request any discussion about this revelation is kept constructive.
There was a time when I thought very highly of Blizz, like they could do no wrong. I remember thinking how everything they produced was pure gold. This was back in the days of Diablo, Diablo2, Warcraft3, Frozen Throne, then World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2.
It’s not like that anymore. Diablo3 tiltered slightly. Warcraft: Reforged was utterly atrocious. They continually have gross gaffs that mar their reputation. So, that’s that. Got no love for it anymore. It’s just a dirty entity like the rest.
To be clear, I’m not intending to be overly dramatic about this. It’s just mildly disappointing. I’m used to game companies being dirty, but this is different. It’s more like a fall from grace so it stings a little more for me.
So, they’ve got the money. They can hire the people to do the work. They’ve got enough talent to make Overwatch which I maintain is a great game, but then it’s such a simple concept that it was an easy win.
I think a much greater test is coming with Overwatch 2 because I HIGHLY suspect that players will be extremely dissapointed with the story and content that’s coming. The reason is that they’ve had so long to hype themselves up and imagine how it’s going to be that I just can’t see reality living up to that expectation.
That’s going to be the great challenge with Overwatch 2. Meeting the sky high expectations of people. If “Warcraft 3: Reforged” is anything to go by then boy oh boy are people going to be dissapointed. I actually don’t think it’ll be quite that bad, but we’ll see.
From what I’ve seen, the writing is bad. It’s always been kinda bad. The only character I had any emotion for was Bastion during his cinematic. Ironically he came across as the most “human” character in this “story”…
– And what is this story? It’s basically ripped from “The Watchmen” where there were a bunch of super heroes that were forced into retirement by the authorities and now there’s a new generation of super heroes. They both even have “Watch” in the titles.
it might be because the company is about to get slammed up the butt with testimonials about how uranus it is to work there, and that’s going to paint it in an even badder shade than one would like to be associated with. i don’t know fam
Story issues for OW2? I suspect the writers are discovering that there has been no actual plan for the story/lore all along and now they’re being asked to come up with something that is interesting, original and happens to match all the existing lore in a satisfying way. There’s probably also someone higher-up at Blizzard/Activision that is trying to interfere in the process, further complicating things.
I mean she is a reasonably big name. It would not surprise me if someone made her a better offer, because video game writers are not exactly paid top tier dollars.
Changing jobs is a big deal. Sometimes even ‘a better offer’ isn’t worth the hassle (unless it’s a much better offer).
I went through the same situation just this year - I was approached by another company with a better offer but decided not to leave because it wasn’t so much more to justify the stress and uncertainty of changing jobs.
The second one because that makes the most sense, especially considering that most of the OW2 lore is likely written already so she could probably leave on good terms.
