Blizzard buys Spellbreak developers to support WoW Dragonflight

Following the news that the magical battle royale Spellbreak will end, Activision Blizzard has announced the acquisition of game developer Proletariat, which will join the World of Warcraft development team ahead of the MMORPG’s next expansion, WoW: Dragonflight. Proletariat CEO Seth Sivak said “the level of ambition of what we want to do with World of Warcraft” has been a huge boost for his team.

GamesBeat’s report details the acquisition, which WoW General Manager John Hight said was the result of December talks with Sivak. “I was very impressed with it,” says Hite. “The team felt they had a lot of common values ​​and were familiar with World of Warcraft.” Now that Blizzard has released several additions with a remote workforce, the team felt ready to take on the Boston studio, many of whose employees also continue to work remotely.

Sivak admits that while the game was a critical success, Spellbreak “just couldn’t get the dodge speed we needed to keep expanding it.” GamesBeat says that the studios began working together in May and that Proletariat “will be fully integrated into Blizzard Entertainment in the coming months.” Hite says that some of the development work will be on the Dragonflight expansion.

When asked how recent criticism from Blizzard and Activision Blizzard’s ongoing workplace discrimination investigation influenced Proletariat’s decision to join the team, Sivak responded, “We were very open and transparent about it, and I think the Blizzard team realized some of the problems they were facing. was.” He adds that the Proletariat team was “pretty happy and satisfied” with the direction the Blizzard teams were taking.

“Blizzard hires Proletariat to help grow World of Warcraft” may not have been on our 2022 bingo cards, but it helps clarify why Spellbreak is coming to an end. WoW: Dragonflight is available for pre-order now with the game’s next expansion due for release in late 2022. A recent data analysis revealed a new rideable murloc that will be joining the fantasy game as part of an upcoming release.