Blizzard has revealed that longtime veteran Chris Metzen has returned to the company to work on WarCraft.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Blizzard shared this message on Twitter:
“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!”
Chris also shared his own message upon the announcement:
“It’s been amazing working on Warcraft again. Like coming home. The stories we’re developing right now – how the world unfolds over the next few years… Well, I can’t wait for y’all to see where we’re headed.
SOON… :)”
We had actually reported that Chris already returned to Blizzard last year. At the time, he had taken on the role of creative advisor for WarCraft. So this new report is about Metzen returning to the helm as essentially the man in charge of the WarCraft franchise.
Chris’ promotion comes at an interesting time for Blizzard, WarCraft itself has been somewhat stagnant. Blizzard has made no announcements of plans to make a WarCraft 4. The franchise’s continuing relevance today is thanks to its MMO spinoff, World of WarCraft.
While World of WarCraft continues to have an active user base, Blizzard failed to retain the interest of much of the fans who had returned to playing the game through the pandemic. It’s latest expansion, Dragonflight was critically well received, However, many reviewers pointed out how jarring it was that the expansion was an attempt to make World of WarCraft feel like an entirely new game, but it remained the same game at its core. So, it doesn’t quite accomplish what Cyberpunk 2077 recently achieved with Phantom Liberty.
Of, and also, there’s the pending acquisition of WarCraft’s parent company, Activision Blizzard King, to Microsoft. When that deal is finalized it will open many opportunities for WarCraft. In the immediate future, the most relevant of those new opportunities is for WarCraft games to be available in cloud gaming.
Will the classic WarCraft games come up on cloud gaming? Will World of WarCraft become a part of PC Game Pass, immediately revitalizing its user base potential? These are some of the decisions Chris Metzen will be a part of. The world could be Chris’ oyster when it comes to WarCraft.
