Former 'Overwatch' Director Reveals Wild West Shooter ‘The Legend of California’
Jeff Kaplan returns with a Gold Rush FPS blending survival, crafting and online co-op on a shifting Californian frontier.
Summary
- Jeff Kaplan has announced his return to game development with a Wild West action-survival shooter called The Legend of California
- The multiplayer game is the debut project from his new studio Kintsugiyama and will be published by Dreamhaven
- Kaplan also revealed he left Blizzard in 2021 due to immense corporate pressure over Overwatch revenue targets
Former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan has officially unveiled his next project, a multiplayer action-survival first-person shooter titled The Legend of California. Developed by his newly established studio Kintsugiyama, the game is set on a fictional, procedurally generated island version of California during the Gold Rush era. The title will be published by Dreamhaven, the company founded by former Blizzard president Mike Morhaime.
The Legend of California combines precision first-person shooting with robust survival mechanics, allowing players to gather resources, craft items, hunt wildlife, and build customizable ranches. The game features persistent online servers supporting solo play or groups of up to four, alongside optional PvP elements. A unique mapping system ensures that familiar Californian landmarks appear in expected regions, while dozens of points of interest and difficulty tiers shift dynamically depending on the server seed.
Kaplan announced the game during a lengthy podcast appearance, marking his first major public interview since departing Blizzard Entertainment in 2021. During the discussion, Kaplan disclosed that he left the company due to intense business pressures, citing a meeting where a financial officer warned that failing to hit Overwatch revenue targets would result in 1,000 layoffs.
The Legend of California is expected to launch in Early Access on PC later in 2026.
