Ex-Blizzard personnel, disheartened by life under Activision, set up a new company and two new studios

A group of former staffers from Blizzard Entertainment have founded a new company in apparent protest over the treatment of their former home by parent company Activision, which acquired Blizzard in 2008.

The new company is called Dreamhaven and has been founded by former Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime. Morhaime ran Blizzard until 2018, stepping into an advisory role for a year before leaving altogether. Dreamhaven will run two development studios: Moonshot Games and Secret Door. No games have yet been announced, but presumably both studios will be anxious to get projects underway ASAP.

Blizzard Entertainment was founded in 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse. They released their first two games, Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings, in 1993 before before switching their name to Chaos Studios, Inc. They became known as Blizzard in 1994.

Blizzard had their first big hits with WarCraft: Orcs and Humans (1994) and its sequel WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995), fantasy real-time strategy games inspired by Warhammer and Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis. They achieved even greater success with a science fiction variant on the franchise, StarCraft, which was released in 1998 to universal acclaim and enormous sales, becoming the biggest-selling real-time strategy game of all time with over 20 million copies sold.

They also began development of a dark fantasy action roleplaying game, Diablo (1997), and achieved success with more sequels: Diablo II (2000) and WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002). In 2004 they shifted gears again and released World of WarCraft, the most successful and popular online roleplaying game of all time with more than 100 million player accounts and over $10 billion in generated revenue.

The game's immense success saw them acquired by Activision in 2008. However, as part of the deal Blizzard continued to operate autonomously and they continued to release sequels: the much-delayed StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was released in 2010 and Diablo III in 2012. Both games were criticised, StarCraft II for the immense wait for the second and third parts of the campaign (the final part was not released until 2015) and Diablo III for technical problems and an "auction house" approach which was believed to be nickel-and-diming loyal fans. Diablo III's problems were fixed by the release of the critically acclaimed Reaper of Souls expansion in 2014. StarCraft II's sales topped out at under 20 million, with the game losing online momentum and long-term fans preferring the original game's unit balance and online play. In recognition of this, Blizzard abandoned plans for a StarCraft III in favour of StarCraft Remastered, released in 2017 to critical acclaim. Diablo III and Reaper of Souls went on to achieve tremendous success with over 30 million sales, but "cold feet" by Activision executives saw a second expansion cancelled and developers transferred over to a fast-tracked Diablo IV.

Blizzard experienced further controversies when a second MMORPG they put into development in 2007, Titan, was cancelled in 2014 after an immense amount of money had been spent on it. Blizzard salvaged the game's plot and art assets to create an online action game called Overwatch (2016), which proved an unexpected huge hit with almost 50 million sales to date.

Despite delivering massive sales successes - by some metrics Blizzard's games have sold over 250 million copies, making them one of the most successful development studios in history - rumours began to spread in 2018 that Activision was unhappy with Blizzard's development schedule, which saw games released only when "they were done" and not iterated on annually, like Activision's own Call of Duty franchise which has delivered a new game annually since 2005. Blizzard was forced to cut costs and downsize, angering executives and developers alike who were well aware of the continued massive revenue being generated by Overwatch, Diablo III and even the then-fourteen-year-old World of WarCraft. Morhaime stepped down around this time. Activision was also criticised for its handling of Diablo IV, cancelling an early version of the game which would have represented a more radical shift away from the classic gameplay (and would have perhaps been released as a spin-off rather than a continuation of the main series), losing key staffmembers and cancelling the formal announcement of the game in 2018 in favour of derided mobile spin-off Diablo Immortal, to the bafflement and then fury of fans.

This is familiar territory for Activision, who acquired original Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward in 2003. After initially giving Infinity Ward a lot of freedom and rewarding them for early successes, Activision took closer control of the company, forcing them to release games annually and bringing in other studios to help speed the production of spin-offs. They also refused to consider letting Infinity Ward work on new IPs or experiment more dramatically with the gameplay. As a result, the founders of Infinity Ward quit the company in 2010, triggering an epic series of suits and counter-suits that lasted several years. Many other Infinity Ward developers followed them out the door and they established an new company called Respawn, which collaborated with Electronic Arts on the Titanfall franchise (including the hugely successful multiplayer spin-off Apex Legends) and the recent Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, with EA guaranteeing them greater freedom to work on different projects.

It sounds like history has repeated itself, with reports of numerous Blizzard developers and staffmembers quitting the company to join forces with Dreamhaven.

Blizzard continues to work on Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal and Overwatch 2. Dreamhaven's new projects have yet to be announced, but I suspect that both Microsoft and Sony would be very happy to have their games on their new consoles and the PC platform.

Rumour: Netflix developing DIABLO animated series

Revenge of the Fans is reporting that Netflix are developing an animated TV series based on the Diablo trilogy of video games from Blizzard Entertainment.

The original Diablo was released in 1996 and has been followed by expansions and sequels: Diablo: Hellfire (1997), Diablo II (2000), Diablo II: Lords of Destruction (2001), Diablo III (2012), Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (2014) and Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer (2017). The games are set on the world of Sanctuary, where the native humans are engaged in a battle with the Prime Evils, a loose alliance of demons led by the fiendish Diablo, the primary antagonist of the series. The worldbuilding and lore is notable for being far less intricate and complex than that of Blizzard's other two big properties, WarCraft and StarCraft.

The Diablo franchise is also notable for its focus on action, battles and combat over a dense narrative. Although this looseness makes adapting the Diablo series more attractive than tackling the complex, much-retconned StarCraft universe (WarCraft is likely to rest a while after the 2016 movie, which only just broke even), it also means there isn't as much information to draw upon. A bigger draw might be that Diablo III and its expansions have sold over 30 million copies to date, roughly twice the sales of StarCraft II and its expansions.

According to RotF, Netflix are tapping Andrew Cosby (Eureka, the new Hellboy movie) to write the series. It would be Netflix's second animated series based on a video game, after Castlevania (which returns for a second season later this year).

The creator of many of SFF gaming's most famous characters retires

Chris Metzen, the creator of the StarCraft and Diablo fictional universes for Blizzard Entertainment and the primary creative force on WarCraft, has announced that he is retiring at the age of 42.

Very arguably, Metzen's most well-known creation is the honourable orc chieftain Thrall. Not only did he create the character, he provided his voice in multiple games. Metzen's other famous creations include StarCraft's Kerrigan and Jim Raynor, and several of Overwatch's roster of characters.

Metzen joined Blizzard in 1994 to work on Justice League Taskforce, a console beat 'em up based on DC Comics characters. However, he took time out to lend a hand with their in-development real-time strategy game, WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. The setting, storyline and characters in the original game were very bare-bones, so for the sequel, WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995), Metzen took a lead role in design (both character and mission) and crafting the background lore for the setting. He then created the world, storyline and characters for both Diablo (1996) and StarCraft (1998) and their respective expansions and sequels.

Metzen worked extensively on WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002) and its expansion The Frozen Throne (2003), which set the scene for World of WarCraft (2004). Metzen played a key development role on World of WarCraft and all six (to date) of its expansions, but the ongoing development of the game and frequent retcons of established lore due to game design limitations has frustrated some fans. Metzen returned to creative lead and design on StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010) and its expansions, as well as Diablo III (2012).

After World of WarCraft's release Metzen worked on Blizzard's science fiction MMORPG Titan. Titan was eventually cancelled, but its lore, world and characters were recycled instead into the competitive online shooter Overwatch (2016), which is Blizzard's newest major franchise. Metzen also contributed the story for the 2016 WarCraft film, directed by Duncan Jones.

Metzen's early retirement is understandable given his immense workload for many years, but it also leaves Blizzard in an odd place, with the creative lead of three of its four main franchises departing at once. The future of Blizzard's single-player games has been in doubt for some time, with its focus switching more and more to competitive online multiplayer games, and it may be that Blizzard have no plans for a WarCraft IV, Diablo IV or StarCraft III at this time, which presumably would not have left Metzen with much to do.

Between Jim Raynor, Kerrigan, Arcturus Mengsk, Tassadar of the Protoss, Zeratul of the Dark Templar and Artanis the Lich King, Metzen has created some of SFF gaming's most well-known characters. He also pioneered the idea of in-depth storytelling through a strategy game interface, something that had not previously been rendered entirely successfully.

Metzen has said that he will continue providing voiceover work for Blizzard. Most notably, he will continue to provide the voice of orc hero Thrall for future World of WarCraft expansions and his cross-over appearances in online card game Hearthstone and brawler Heroes of the Storm.