Blizzard is buying developer Proletariat and shutting down Spellbreak

Blizzard is buying developer Proletariat and shutting down Spellbreak

Proletariat is getting absorbed into Blizzard.

The maker of Spellbreak will soon become part of Blizzard (which will soon become part of Microsoft). However, there’s even worse news for fans of the game as the fantasy battle royale is getting shut down.

Venture Beat reports:

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Blizzard Entertainment said it plans to acquire Spellbreak maker Proletariat to beef up the staff on its massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

Under the deal, Boston-based Proletariat will become part of Blizzard, and its team of 100 people will begin working on World of Warcraft, including the Dragonflight expansion coming later this year. Spellbreak, a battle royale game where wizards and witches cast spells at each other, will be sunset. (The company announced this news yesterday.)

The move is the biggest acquisition that Blizzard has made — at least for the past decade — to expand its studios. In this case, the mission is to beef up the staffing for World of Warcraft so that it can hit quality and timing goals for expansions. Terms of this transaction were not disclosed.

Spellbreak

Proletariat was founded in 2012 with industry veterans from Insomniac Games and Harmonix. The studio released Spellbreak on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2020. Although it was critically acclaimed and topped 5 million players in just a few weeks, the game has not received many updates lately.

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