A report by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has shed light on internal restructuring going on at Blizzard Entertainment. Among those changes, a major one has reportedly seen Blizzard Team 1 – who developed last year’s Warcraft 3: Reforged – being dismantled late last year. Team 1 was also responsible for StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, and StarCraft Remastered.
As per the report, following the launch and widespread criticism of Warcraft 3: Reforged, Team 1 began preparations for work on its next project, a remake of Diablo 2. Before work on that began, however, the team set about to discuss what had gone wrong with Warcraft 3: Reforged’s development.
According to internal Blizzard documents seen by Bloomberg, the remake’s development was plagued by miscommunication, mismanagement, and a rushed launch due to financial pressures. The game was announced in November 2018, at which point Blizzard began accepting pre-orders for a 2019 launch, and this was done without the knowledge of most of the development team.
While Blizzard Team 1 was focused on ensuring that similar mistakes weren’t repeated, Blizzard eventually pulled the Diablo 2 remake project and handed it to the team working on Diablo 4 (who are reportedly curretly overseeing the remake, with Vicarious Visions, who were recently merged into Blizzard as support studio, working on the game).
In October 2020, Blizzard dissolved Team 1, dismantling the division entirely. Many Team 1 employees were given the chance to interview for positions elsewhere at Blizzard, but several developers were let go. Quite a few Team 1 staff chose to join indie teams like DreamHaven – a newly set up game development company led by former CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Morhaime – or Frost Giant, another developer set up by former Blizzard veterans.
A Blizzard spokesperson said to Bloomberg when asked about Warcraft 3: Reforged’s planned updates and fixes: “We are still committed to updates in support of the community.” It remains to be seen who will be in charge of the remake’s post-launch plans.