Hey, remember Spellbreak? It was a 2020 battle royale that was actually pretty well-liked around here, though it’s been quiet the last few months. And as of today, we’ve learned why: Studio Proletariat announced that it’s sunsetting Spellbreak “as of early 2023.”
That’s because the company has been bought out by no less than Blizzard Entertainment to – as VentureBeat put it – “beef up the staff on its massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft” specifically “so that it can hit quality and timing goals for expansions.” The acquisition of Proletariat means 100+ devs now added to the WoW team, whose bosses have acknowledged hiring has been difficult.
In fact, it sounds as if Proletariat has already been working with Blizzard since May. Bringing on a second studio on the other side of the country sure would be a good way to whip out an expansion and get back on track with the ol’ cadence, eh? Indeed: “[S]ome of Proletariat’s work will appear in the Dragonflight expansion” according to Blizzard’s John Hight.
Proletariat’s CEO, Seth Sivak, also told VentureBeat that the company heads had discussed Activision-Blizzard’s ongoing scandals and brain-drain and that Proletariat is “pretty happy and satisfied with the direction that teams are going.”
RIP, Spellbreak.
