Over the last few years, Blizzard has been hit with a lot of high-profile departures, but today the studio has announced one of the major names from their past is climbing back into the saddle. Chris Metzen worked a designer on many of Blizzard’s most beloved franchises, and is generally credited as the main creative mind behind the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo fictional universes. Back in 2016 Metzen retired as the ripe old age of 42 in order to focus on his family, but he quietly returned to Blizzard as an advisor late last year. Well, it seems he’s now stepping into a much bigger role.
Blizzard announced on X that Metzen will be the new Executive Creative Director of the entire Warcraft franchise, with, of course, a special focus on World of Warcraft.
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) September 26, 2023
“We are excited to share that Chris Metzen has taken on a full-time role as Executive Creative Director of the Warcraft universe. Right now, his main focus is supporting our World of Warcraft leadership in crafting the next generation of adventures.
Chris was instrumental in developing the foundations of the Warcraft Universe and we are thrilled for him to re-join our teams in shaping what's to come. At BlizzCon, he and the team will be sharing what we've been working on. We hope to see you there!”
Undoubtedly exciting news for a franchise that has been somewhat adrift recently. The World of Warcraft team was hit particularly hard by the revelation of Blizzard’s toxic work environment and the subsequent firings and resignations and the Dragonflight expansion didn’t really set the world on fire. It will be interesting to see what Blizzard means by “the next generation of adventures” – do they simply mean more expansions? Or are they working on a bigger refresh for World or Warcraft, or, dare to dream, a new Warcraft RTS or other standalone project? As mentioned, we can look forward to learning more at BlizzCon, which is slated for the weekend of November 3.
What do you think WoW heads? Excited to have Metzen back in charge? What do you hope to see from Warcraft in the future?
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