worldwithpyramids
Member
Game studios are only as good as the people running them and we now have four studios with original Blizzard talent producing games:
Bonfire Studio: founded by legendary game designer Rob Pardo (lead on Brood War, WarCraft III and World of Warcraft (+Burning Crusade)). They've quietly been working on something for a few years now with a development team filled with Blizzard alum.
Second Dinner: Ben Brode of Hearthstone fame (co-creator) started this studio with a bunch of people from his former Hearthstone team. It was revealed last year that they are working on something within the Marvel universe.
Then of course we have the two most recent additions started by the founder of Blizzard himself, Mike Morhaime:
Moonshot Games: a team of former Blizzard employees with lead game designer Dustin Browder (StarCraft II, HoTS, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2).
Secret Door: another team of former Blizzard employees this time led by the other co-creator of Hearthstone (before that he was the profession designer for WoW), Eric Dodds.
These are all studios that seem to have the luxury of time and money to make something special. As someone who has been a fan of their games since I was a young child, I was massively bummed out watching so many Blizzard people jumping ship over the last decade. It felt like the end of an era (and still does, though I still do enjoy some stuff Blizzard proper does) but now that there's these four studios making games without the pressure of Activision... I've actually not felt more excited to be a Blizzard fan in a long time. Silver linings and all that.
Bonfire Studio: founded by legendary game designer Rob Pardo (lead on Brood War, WarCraft III and World of Warcraft (+Burning Crusade)). They've quietly been working on something for a few years now with a development team filled with Blizzard alum.
Second Dinner: Ben Brode of Hearthstone fame (co-creator) started this studio with a bunch of people from his former Hearthstone team. It was revealed last year that they are working on something within the Marvel universe.
Then of course we have the two most recent additions started by the founder of Blizzard himself, Mike Morhaime:
Moonshot Games: a team of former Blizzard employees with lead game designer Dustin Browder (StarCraft II, HoTS, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2).
Secret Door: another team of former Blizzard employees this time led by the other co-creator of Hearthstone (before that he was the profession designer for WoW), Eric Dodds.
These are all studios that seem to have the luxury of time and money to make something special. As someone who has been a fan of their games since I was a young child, I was massively bummed out watching so many Blizzard people jumping ship over the last decade. It felt like the end of an era (and still does, though I still do enjoy some stuff Blizzard proper does) but now that there's these four studios making games without the pressure of Activision... I've actually not felt more excited to be a Blizzard fan in a long time. Silver linings and all that.