Jeff Kaplan, Former Overwatch Director, Shows Off New Open World Western First Person Shooter

Wondering what Jeff Kaplan has been up to in recent years? The former Overwatch director was a guest on the Lex Fridman podcast and shed a lot of details, including his departure from the Blizzard, the cancellation of Titan, and what he has been doing lately. For the latter, the world has their first look at his latest game, an open world western, The Legend of California.

Based on a fictional setting of Gold Rush, California, you will be able to explore a vast open world, craft items, incorporate survival concepts like manage a ranch, and do battle on a mythical island. The potentially robust emphasis on crafting sounds inspired by Red Dead Redemption.

"The Legend of California is an open world, action-survival shooter set on the mythical Island of California during the gold rush era," the game's description reads on its Steam page. "Explore a vast, untamed frontier and forge your legacy alone or with friends."

This procedurally generated open world will also be a multiplayer game at its core. Kaplan speaks about this fictional take on California, while also retaining many aspects of the landscape that will be familiar.

“All of those familiar landmarks are there, but then we have dozens of points of interest, and those move around the map depending on the map seed, and the map is also tiered in terms of difficulty," Kaplan explains. "We don’t really have levels in this game, we have tiers, and there’s only four right now, maybe that will change."

The Legend of California will be the first game under Kaplan's newly founded Kintsugiyama Studios. It will be published by Dream Haven (Sunderfolk, Wildgate). You can currently add it to your wishlist on Steam.