Blizzard has revealed that former Riot Games and Bungie developer Jared Neuss has recently joined the developer as an executive producer for Overwatch 2. The long-awaited sequel to the hero shooter has made waves throughout the gaming industry since its launch earlier this month after years in development. The second game brought with it a handful of new Heroes like Junker Queen and Kiriko and recently launched its first event with Halloween Terror bringing back the popular Junkenstein's Revenge game mode. Now, the game's development team has seen a major new addition.
Blizzard has announced the addition of Jared Neuss to the Overwatch 2 team, joining Blizzard's Team 4 as an executive producer. Neuss comes to Blizzard with more than 10 years of experience in the gaming industry split between big names like 343 Industries, Bungie, and Riot Games. Neuss served as a Senior Producer on many of the online services for Halo 5: Guardians with 343 and Lead Gameplay Producer for Destiny 2, even briefly sitting as Bungie's Head of Production.
Jared Neuss' most recent position saw the producer spend four years with Riot Games working on many of the developers' biggest projects. Neuss originally served as a Product Manager for many of League of Legends' competitive-oriented game modes including Ranked play, matchmaking, and leading the re-design of League of Legends' "Clash" in-game tournaments. Neuss would later serve as Initiative Lead for League of Legends spinoff game Teamfight Tactics and Director of Production for Riot Games' in-development MMORPG.
Neuss' addition to the Overwatch 2 team comes as the hero shooter recently launched its first event with a variety of new game modes, skins, and more. The Halloween Terror event features the return of Overwatch's Junkenstein's Revenge game mode, as well as a new story-based spinoff called Wrath of the Bride. The event also features new Halloween-themed skins for a handful of characters, with players receiving the Cursed Captain Reaper skin for free and Werewolf Winston available from Twitch drops. Overwatch 2's new characters, Kiriko and Junker Queen, also received spooky new skins alongside the event.
Neuss will come in as executive producer of an Overwatch 2 that has seen a rocky launch with several issues hindering the game from the outset. Overwatch 2 saw significant server issues shortly after the game's release with many players experiencing difficulties logging into the game and staying connected to matches. Several characters were even disabled temporarily with Torbjorn removed from Competitive Play and Bastion entirely disabled. Neuss will bring years of experience with competitive online games to his new role with Blizzard and Overwatch 2.
Overwatch 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.