Chris Puckett leaving Overwatch League in 2020
Chris "Puckett" Puckett a well-known esports personality and a former Halo player and commentator has announced this on Wednesday, he will not be returning to Overwatch League for its third season, but instead, enter 2020 as a freelancer.
Puckett has been the primary host of the Overwatch League analyst desk throughout the inaugural OWL season and Season 2 and quickly became one of the most loveable Overwatch personalities. Unfortunately, for the OWL fans, Puckett has announced he will no longer participate in the OWL and instead look for his career opportunities elsewhere.
The announcement surfaced later on Wednesday when Puckett posted a vlog on his official Twitter account, where he documented the changes in his life which led him to decide to leave the Overwatch Scene.
Announcement: https://twitter.com/MLGPuckett/status/1212468774684778497
Puckett started the "life update" video by announcing his wife Molly got a promotion, which brought them back to New York City. The couple had previously lived in NYC for 11 years but moved out to the west coast for Puckett's gig at OWL before he became the host of the inaugural OWL season. His departure from the west coast, however, means Puckett won't be able to host the OWL for the third season.
"I had a blast over the first two years and I know that now as a freelancer, it's not the end of the world for me," said Puckett.
While he is leaving his job as an OWL Host, Puckett unveiled he plans to freelance primarily Overwatch and Call of Duty League. He has previously established himself as a capable CoD host at Major League Gaming Vegas 2016, which was also one of the first events he hosted in his career.
"I hope to be joining everyone in the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty League's hosting and commentating the biggest events in front of the people I love – the fans and the community."
Puckett also expressed his excitement about finally having more free time to get back to his roots, i.e. some of the games he grew up on and still he still loves, which includes Halo, Call of Duty and Counter-Strike and also unveiled his plans on getting more familiar with other titles such as Rainbow Six Siege, Apex Legends and Rocket League.
Seeing how Puckett is leaving the OWL scene can prove to be a hard pill to swallow for many of his fans, however, it's entirely understandable he had to make this decision in order to support his significant other and her career. Puckett also had some words for his former colleagues and stated he believes that whoever will take his spot as the new host will be successful in being his successor.
"I want to give a special shoutout to everyone that is still working on the Overwatch League; shoutout to whoever will be taking over as the host; make sure they get you a talkback button so you can talk to the producer," said Puckett.
"I want to thank everyone who was a part of our lives over the last two years on the west coast. We moved out there with a few of our friends, but everyone that was working on the Overwatch League truly became our family, form the stage manager to the make-up team, to the producers… I had such a great time working on this show and coming into work was an absolute joy every single day."
Puckett's announcement comes only a day after his former co-worker Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles announced he will no longer be an Overwatch League caster due to "creative and philosophical differences with the league's current leadership," which surfaced as a result of the departure of Nate Nanzer from OWL in May 2018 when he joined up with Epic Games.
MonteCristo also revealed he will no longer produce Overwatch related content in the future and rather look to explore his opportunities in other esports titles in accordance to his own vision, standards and fifteen years of endemic industry experience. He has, however, told the community he will continue to perform as an on-camera talent, however, will broaden his skill-set as a creative director and producer.
There were also speculations Erik "DoA" Lonnquist, the former casting partner of MonteCristo will also leave the OWL scene, after his Tweet where he stated that his contract with OWL has ended, but those rumours and speculation were quickly shut down by DoA himself, who claimed he never said he won't be returning back to OWL, but merely stated his contract is over, which does not necessarily mean he is not prepared to extend it.
https://twitter.com/ggDoA/status/1212115497317068800
Despite the uncertainty of DoA's future, Overwatch League has already lost two important personalities, and all that barely five weeks prior to the launch of what is expected to be the biggest and most important season for Overwatch league.
