Blizzard Entertainment Head ‘WarCraft’ Lore Chris Metzen Retires, ‘Former Creative Lead Opens Bonfire Studios

Some shakeups regarding the video game developer juggernaut that is Blizzard Entertainment came about recently: Chris Metzen, the man in charge of the creative development at Blizzard, announced his retirement while his ex-coworker Rob Pardo, another creative lead at the company, announced his founding of a new development studio.

Chris Metzen, who functioned as the Senior Vice President of Story and Franchise Development at Blizzard Entertainment alongside providing some voices for its games, officially tendered his resignation from his position according to IGN.

Metzen also wrote a message to Blizzard Entertainment's loyal fanbase, which was posted by community manager Kaivax on the official Battle.net forums. In the message, Metzen noted of the beginnings of his tenure at Blizzard and spoke of his experiences crafting the extensively expansive world of "WarCraft" that is now being explored through the biggest MMORPG of the generation, "World of WarCraft."

For his presence in the games themselves, "WarCraft" and "World of WarCraft" players will know Metzen as the longtime voice of the character Thrall. The former leader of the Horde faction as its war chief, as well as one of the main protagonists of the campaign of "WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos," Thrall serves as one of the most important characters of the franchise.

With Metzen's retirement, which he made clear is not a simple resignation from Blizzard to join or start another company, it is unclear if he will keep providing the voice for Thrall. It could be that Metzen's retirement from Blizzard is simply from his development capacities, meaning that he could remain onboard as a voice actor.

But with endings come new beginnings; while Metzen is not moving onto greener pastures from Blizzard, his former coworker Rob Pardo does not share the same plans. Pardo recently featured in a New York Times piece, via Polygon, that spoke of his newly founded studio.

Dubbed Bonfire Studios, Pardo's new company was formed with backing by Riot Games, the company behind the hit MOBA "League of Legends," who provided part of the $25 million of Bonfire Studios' startup capital.

Pardo, who left his position of Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard in 2014, partnered up with Min Kim, a former executive of prominent free-to-play game developer Nexon. Bonfire Studios does not yet have any announced projects in development.