Just two weeks before the release of Overwatch 2 (and the inevitable shutdown of Overwatch), the gaming community is hit with sad news—the lead hero designer of Overwatch 2 decided to leave the well-known video game developer and publisher, Blizzard Entertainment.
According to a Blizzard spokesperson via PC Gamer, Geoff Goodman, who was last seen publicly in an interview last June, decided to leave the company earlier this year.
Geoff Goodman was a key member of the Overwatch 2 team. Not only was he the lead hero designer for Overwatch 2, but he also oversaw the general gameplay and balance of the game.
He has been with the team for several years already, and he was there when project Titan was still conceived as an MMO game until it was revived and reconceptualized to be the popular team-based FPS that we know now. He also used to work on the World of Warcraft video game series before moving to the project Titan.
The former lead hero designer had big participation in the Orisa and Doomfist reworks, along with the creation of more recent heroes, Junker Queen and Sojourn.
Geoff Goodman did not release an official statement as to why he decided to leave the company. However, he wasn’t the first high-profile member to leave Blizzard Entertainment in the last two years.
Just April last year, game director Jeff Kaplan left the company and was replaced by Aaron Keller. Then, just around five months later, the executive producer of Overwatch, Chacko Sonny, also left the company.
Moreover, in February of this year, Tracy Kennedy also announced her departure as the producer of the Overwatch team. These all happened in light of the internal issues faced by Activision Blizzard last year involving numerous discrimination and harassment lawsuits filed against the company.
The company provided PC Gamer with its official statement regarding the departure of Geoff Goodman, which you can read below.
'We thank Geoff for his many years of service at Blizzard and wish him all the best. His ability to bring to life Overwatch’s diverse hero roster through gameplay has been incredible, and the mark he’s left on the Warcraft and Overwatch teams will be felt for years to come.'