Hearthstone Game Director Quits Blizzard

Hearthstone game director Ben Brode has announced that he's leaving the company. Today will be his last day, and he marked the occasion with a long goodbye letter to the fans and company. The letter is vague about future plans, but he does specify that he's leaving to help start a new company, and it will probably be involved in game design.

"I am very fortunate to be able to take a crazy risk right now in my life, and I'm excited to be scrappy and a little scared," he said. "I'm going to help start a new company. We'll probably make games, but we haven't figured anything else out, yet. I'm looking forward to designing, programming, and actually creating things again. I'm going to miss the on-campus Starbucks, though. Dang."

Brode started at the company as a "Night Crew Game Tester," and in 2008 moved to Team 5 to begin work on Hearthstone. He was officially named Game Director in late 2016. His friendliness with the community made him the public face of the game, a point he acknowledges in his letter.

"I get too much credit by virtue of being a public face, but the 80+ people on the development team are still there, and they are the ones actually making the cards, brawls, events, missions, and features. I am confident the game is in the best possible hands, and I'm excited to see where a new generation of leaders takes Hearthstone from here."

The announcement comes just on the heels of release of Hearthstone's latest expansion, The Witchwood. Brode was active in the promotion of the new set, including some hammy acting in a Blair Witch parody video (above) to kick off the reveals. The game is currently offering three packs and a class Legendary for logging in during the launch event. Next week, the single-player portion of the Witchwood, Monster Hunt, will release. Check out all 135 Witchwood cards from the expansion.