Chris Metzen Leaves Blizzard Entertainment

After just under 23 years, Chris Metzen leaves Blizzard Entertainment to quietly retire to spend time with his wife and children. He says he will not start working for another company or have other projects planned.

He writes that in a long message on the Battle.net forum. Chris Metzen, 42, is known to many for his speeches at Blizzcon, Blizzard’s annual fan fair that the studio hosts itself. Metzen had been responsible for the stories in the games at Blizzard since 2002 as creative director and often announced new games at the fair.

In his post, he describes his life at Blizzard from the moment he stepped in as a 20-year-old with no idea what he was doing. Despite that, he was full of story ideas, though his experience consisted mostly of a long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign that he played with some close friends.

In recent times, he was still responsible for the arrival of World of Warcraft: Legion, the arrival of Overwatch and the Warcraft movie. Before that, he worked on several Warcraft games, StarCraft and Diablo. But not only did he come up with stories, he also contributed to the designs of various games and played voice actor for various figures.