World of Warcraft’s Game Director announced in a Battle.net post yesterday that he’s leaving the 12-year-old MMORPG’s team. Tom Chilton brought the blockbuster game from alpha to its latest expansion, Legion.
World of Warcraft
In his post he says, “It’s with a mix of excitement, sadness, and gratitude that I’m saying farewell to the WoW team”. Chilton will be staying on with Blizzard, focusing on another project. He did not provide more details.
Chilton’s journey with WoW began in 2004, when he was a senior game designer. Beforehand, he was a designer for the MMO Ultima Online. He will be replaced by Ion Hazzikostas, who, Chilton said, has been “an integral part of the team for more than eight years and has contributed to so many aspects of the game’s development — from class design to encounter design and nearly everything in between”.
Hazzikostas, previously WoW’s lead game designer, was in charge of WoW’s raid and dungeon content. Previously, he was a criminal defence lawyer.
Comments
3 responses to “World Of Warcraft’s Game Director Is Leaving The MMO”
I like Tom Chilton (Kalgan), it’s sad to see him leave the team but I’d probably want a change of scenery after 12 years on the same project too. Ion Hazzikostas (Watcher) has done a pretty good job so far, he’s responsible for a lot of the raid mechanic design since Cataclysm, which is arguably some of the best parts of the game in recent years.
Good! New blood is what WoW needs. Wonder what secret Blizzard project he’s going to be assigned to?
my guess would be something diablo related, theres a high chance that a new expansion might be unveiled at blizzcon