Dave Kosak has called time on his stint at Blizzard after 12 years. The studio veteran most recently worked on Hearthstone as the card game’s principal narrative designer and has been one of the more prominent members of the team publicly since Ben Brode left Blizzard to start his own game studio in 2018.
Kosak has been working on Hearthstone for the past four years and has also worked as a lead mission designer on the title. Before that, though, he spent 11 years working on World of Warcraft in a slew of roles from that of a lead quest designer to a lead narrative designer. He also wrote auxiliary WoW story pieces for the web that included short fiction, short animated films, and more. Before that, he worked on games website GameSpy before it merged with IGN.
Kosak shared the news on Twitter last night, tweeting “after 12 remarkable years and countless adventures, I am moving on from Blizzard Entertainment”. He also shared that his next stop is with Deviation Games, where he has picked up a role as a creative director. Details are thin on the ground in regards to what he’s up to, but we’ll find out more soon, we’re sure.
Blizzard alumni have been busy of late. Just recently, former boss Mike Morhaime revealed details of a new publisher called Dreamhaven with two studios in two that are headed up by plenty of former Blizzard devs.
If you follow me because of #Hearthstone, no need to worry! Last week we announced a great expansion, a new mode, and new progression/rewards. Believe me when I say that’s only the beginning. Great things are in the works!
— Dave “Fargo” Kosak (@DaveKosak) October 27, 2020
Plenty is going on at Blizzard, too. The studio revealed a new Hearthstone mode just last week, and the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands release date should be coming sometime this year, too.