Summary
- Overwatch 2 executive producer Jared Neuss joins Riot Games to work on Valorant as senior director.
- Neuss contributed to positive Overwatch 2 changes but faced community backlash over PvE content downsizing.
- Neuss' move to Valorant signals potential for even more success for Riot's popular hero shooter.
Jared Neuss, the executive producer for Overwatch 2 since shortly after the game’s launch, has joined Riot Games to work on Valorant as a senior director. After two and a half years with Blizzard, the Overwatch 2 executive has gone back to one of the game studios that established him as a developer, albeit in a new role.
Less than a month after it officially released, Blizzard announced Jared Neuss had joined the Overwatch 2 team as the new sequel’s executive producer. The developer is credited as a senior producer for both Halo 5: Guardians and Destiny 2, and spent four years at Riot Games split between being a production manager for League of Legends and director of production for its unnamed MMO project.
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Now, Neuss has announced he has returned to one of the game studios that built his esteemed career. In a post on LinkedIn, the developer celebrated the announcements Overwatch 2 made during its recent Spotlight event, including Season 15’s Perks and the upcoming Stadium game mode. The same post also revealed that Neuss had left Overwatch 2 the same day, and has officially returned to Riot Games, now as a senior director for Valorant, the company’s own hero shooter.
Former Overwatch 2 Executive Producer Jared Neuss Now Valorant Senior Director
Neuss has been responsible for many of the positive changes that have taken place in Overwatch 2. He had a hand in the implementation of Legacy Credits, the change to make all new heroes immediately free to play, and many other popular adjustments. He was also the one to break the bad news about the significant downsizing of Overwatch 2’s PvE content, something that earned him little praise from the community, despite the grace with which he delivered the difficult decision.
Though Neuss is returning to one of the studios that “helped make [him] the game developer that [he is] today,” his work on Valorant, rather than League of Legends or Riot’s MMO, is noteworthy. Despite Overwatch 2’s recent comeback, and the arrival of Marvel Rivals, Valorant is still massively successful, regularly matching or even surpassing the player counts of one or both of its competitors. With Neuss now on the team, Valorant may find even more success.
It remains to be seen who will fill Neuss’ position as executive producer of Overwatch 2 now that he has returned to Riot. In the meantime, fans and fellow developers alike have wished Neuss the best of luck as he enters the next chapter of his game development career.
Overwatch 2
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 77 /100 Critics Rec: 65%
WHERE TO PLAY
Overwatch 2 is an always-on and ever-evolving free-to-play, team-based action game set in an optimistic future, where every match is the ultimate 5v5 battlefield brawl. Power up your railgun and disrupt the battlefield as Sojourn, or yield your axe and command attention as Junker Queen. Battle to take control of a robot and move it toward the enemy base in the new Push Mode. Bring the fight to new destinations across the globe in iconic locations like New York, Rome, Monte Carlo and Rio. Daily challenges and frequent updates mean there is always something new to play.
- Genre(s)
- Shooter
