Blizzard’s Hearthstone team has been hit with layoffs

Blizzard Entertainment has laid off a number of employees from its Hearthstone team.

News of the staff cuts seemingly broke via a LinkedIn update from a former team member and they were later confirmed by Activision Blizzard in a statement to Kotaku report Ethan Gach.

“After 18 and a half years at Blizzard Entertainment, I’ve been laid off without notice as of today; the Hearthstone Team is apparently being restructured and my Tools Engineer role is no longer needed,” Hunter C. wrote.

They added: “To the best of my knowledge, Hearthstone was doing well; they had just recently shown off how well we were doing in a team meeting.”

A source told Gach that 10 people had been impacted by the restructuring.

“Organizational changes were made to the Hearthstone team; as a result a small number of roles have become redundant,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said. “We want to thank these employees for their many contributions.”

Blizzard announced on Tuesday that it had appointed studio veteran Chris Metzen as Warcraft’s executive creative director. Metzen was one of the original team members working on the Warcraft universe when it began in 1994.

He had a 23-year spell at the company before retiring in 2016, but he rejoined the studio last year as a creative advisor for Warcraft’s leadership.

“Right now, his main focus is supporting our World of Warcraft leadership in crafting the next generation of adventures,” Blizzard said. “At BlizzCon, he and the team will be sharing what we’ve been working on,” it added.

BlizzCon will return to the Anaheim Convention Center in California from November 3-4, 2023. It will be the convention’s first in-person event since 2019.