Hearthstone director Ben Brode announced today that he would be departing his job at Blizzard and plans "to help start a new company". Brode's departure comes as a shock to Hearthstone fans; the game designer has worked for Blizzard since 2002, starting out as an entry-level game tester before moving up the ranks and becoming one of the best-known and most popular faces of Blizzard's games.