Blizzard may be beaming from the announcement of Overwatch 2 and the hint that there's much more to come at Blizzcon 2019, but October has not been a good month for the company. A controversy over suspending a Hearthstone player for pro-Hong Kong statements led to calls for players to boycott Blizzard and delete their accounts. There was even an employee walk-out to protest the suspension, along with the loss of a sponsorship.

And now, just days ahead of Blizzcon, Blizzard has announced that three developers—Eric Dodds, director of Hearthstone, Jason Chayes, production director of Hearthstone, and Dustin Browder, StarCraft 2 lead designer and Heroes of the Storm director—are no longer working for Blizzard.

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Though the timing for the announcement may seem a bit suspect, Blizzard says that the decision to move on was made months ago, long before any of the current controversies took off. Rather, the timing for the departure seems to have come shortly after the cancellation of their Starcraft-based first person shooter project, which Dodds and Browder were working on. The game's concept seemed similar to the ill-fated Starcraft Ghost, which was also cancelled after years of development.

via:Wccftech.com
Via: pcgamesn.com and kissclipart.com

"Eric, Dustin, and Jason made the decision to move on from Blizzard a few months ago. They have been and always will be considered members of the Blizzard family, and we’ve loved working with them over the years. We wish them the best for the future," a statement from Blizzard read concerning the departure.

The language of the statement makes it unclear whether the developers actually left a few months ago and that word is just getting out, or whether they left recently after making the decision to move on some time ago.

Regardless, the loss of these high-ranking devs, all of whom have worked on well-received projects, will be a great loss for a company that has always been known for high-quality games, even in the midst of its controversies.

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