Blizzard has suffered a round of layoffs at its Hearthstone development team.
In a statement issued to IGN, Activision Blizzard confirmed the layoffs, without specifying the number of staff affected.
“Organizational changes were made to the Hearthstone team; as a result a small number of roles have become redundant. We want to thank these employees for their many contributions.”
Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach tweeted to say 10 members of staff, all within the Hearthstone team, were affected.
Hearthstone is Blizzard’s free-to-play digital card game set within the Warcraft universe. It launched on PC and Mac in March 2014, with a mobile version launching later that year. For a time Hearthstone was one of the most popular video games in the world, but now, nearly a decade after launch, the likes of Overwatch 2, World of Warcraft, and Diablo 4 are considered Blizzard’s focus.
The PC version of Hearthstone remains exclusive to Blizzard’s Battle.net platform, but it may eventually launch on Steam after Blizzard recently said it intends to release a handful of its games on Valve’s platform, starting with Overwatch 2.
Activision Blizzard is the subject of an imminent $69 billion aquisition by Microsoft, following approval from the UK.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
