Blizzard bought a new studio to help build World of Warcraft's future.
Blizzard Entertainment has purchased Proletariat, the Boston-based indie studio behind Spellbreak, to work on new World of Warcraft content. The move comes shortly after Blizzard had its lowest revenues and monthly active users in the last six years, and close to the successful yet highly controversial release of Diablo Immortal.
Under Blizzard, Proletariat will apparently have no time to keep hosting and updating its online game Spellbreak. The studio announced that Spellbreak will be pulled offline in 2023, and development of new content will cease. Proletariat is to work on Dragonflight, the next major World of Warcraft expansion, as well as other future content and updates.
Reports indicate this is the second instance that a Blizzard-absorbed studio has stopped development of a project; Tony Hawk indicates that remasters of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 & 4 were in early planning phases before Vicarious Visions was absorbed by Blizzard (Vicarious now works on Diablo II Resurrected and Diablo IV).
"We are putting players at the forefront of everything we do, and we are working hard to both meet and exceed their expectations," president of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Ybarra told VentureBeat.
"A critical part of taking care of players is taking care of our teams-making sure we have the resources to produce experiences our communities will love while giving our teams space to explore even more creative opportunities within their projects. Proletariat is a perfect fit for supporting Blizzard's mission in bringing high-quality content to our players more often."