Former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan returns with a Western survival shooter

"The Legend of California is billed as an open-world, action-survival shooter. It looks like a mix of Red Dead Redemption and Rust (Rust Dead Redemption, if you will). It's set during the gold rush era, but Kaplan says he and his team at Kintsugiyama were not aiming for historical accuracy. For one thing, this version of California is an island."

"There are cowboys and prospectors, and you'll be able to go hunting, build mines and stables, craft tools and weapons, build out your homestead and raid hostile camps. There are 'challenging' player vs. environment encounters (Kaplan says there are four difficulty tiers available to start with) and optional player vs. player battles."

"Kaplan says his 34-strong team hand-crafted the world, though there's a degree of randomization at play. A certain biome (say, the game's version of the Mojave Desert) might be the easiest, most beginner-friendly area of the game on one server, and the endgame, tier four section on another."

Jeff Kaplan, who led Overwatch at Blizzard for 19 years before departing in 2021, has returned with a new game called The Legend of California through his studio Kintsugiyama. The game is an open-world action-survival shooter blending elements of Red Dead Redemption and Rust, set during the gold rush but prioritizing authenticity over historical accuracy. Players engage in hunting, mining, crafting, homestead building, and raiding camps across a hand-crafted island world with procedural elements. The game features four difficulty tiers for player-versus-environment encounters and optional player-versus-player combat. Players can form companies with up to three others to share progress and resources. Biome difficulty and point-of-interest locations vary across different world seeds. Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's Dreamhaven is publishing the title, with early access launching on Steam and Epic Games Store.

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