What’s in the cards for him now?
Ben Brode, game director for Blizzard’s wildly popular card game, Hearthstone, is leaving the company to start one of his own.
Brode made the announcement in a post on the Blizzard forums, where he told fans “after 15 years at Blizzard and almost 10 years working on Hearthstone, I have made the incredibly difficult decision to embark on a new journey” before continuing, “man, that was a hard sentence to type.”
Brode says he is leaving the massive game developer to help start a new company.
“We’ll probably make games” Brode says, “but we haven’t figured anything else out, yet,” he said, noting he’s “looking forward to designing, programming, and actually creating things again.”
Brode got his start at Blizzard as a Night Crew Game Tester when he was 20 years old. In 2008 he joined Blizzard’s “Team 5” and began working on Hearthstone.
He expressed his gratitude to Blizzard for taking a chance on him, to the Hearthstone team for striving to make the game the best it can be, and to the fans who have supported the game. “Thank you for making being a part of Hearthstone so much fun for me,” Brode ended, “I’ve loved every minute.”
For more on Hearthstone, check out details on the revamp to the game’s Arena Draft, as well as a “What If” talk at GDC which imagined a world without the Big Game Hunter nerf.
Hearthstone’s Witchwood expansion recently launched. With Baku the Mooneater running amok, check out a developer discussion about even and odd cards to learn about some of the expansion’s new mechanics.
Brian Barnett is an IGN freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @Ribnax.
