Former Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan may have left Blizzard Entertainment, yet his legacy — explicitly, a goof about his name — will live on in Overwatch 2. During a gameplay livestream of Overwatch 2 on Thursday, new game director Aaron Keller, lead hero designer Geoff Goodman, and associate art director Dion Rogers flaunted numerous maps coming to the hero shooter, including New York, Toronto, Rome, and Monte Carlo.
Overwatch’s New York map will incorporate not one, but rather two tributes to Kaplan — he got his Master from NYU, coincidentally — including a somewhat inauspicious looking pizza place named Jephs Corner Pizza.
Also, in case you contend that that is clearly an homage to somebody named “Jeph” and not Jeff from the Overwatch team, here’s more proof of the Blizzard’s tribute to Kaplan: a coffee cup on a commuter rail train.
That coffee cup is, obviously, a reference to the time that Jeff Kaplan ordered a decaf coffee at the Starbucks situated on Blizzard Entertainment’s Irvine, California campus, just to be served a cup that read “Jeph.” Here’s Jeremy Craig, former lead feature designer on Overwatch, with the confirmation.
Overwatch 2 and Jeph/Jephs/Jeff’s Easter eggs are coming at an unverified date.