Announced on the official World of Warcraft forums yesterday, current Game Director, Tom Chilton, is stepping down after over a decade of working on one of Blizzard Entertainments most successful titles.
Having started working on the game back in 2004, he has seen it through all its changes, some successful and some not, but it is with this year’s expansion, Legion, that it has gone full circle and is the culmination of all his years worked:
“For me, Legion has been more than just another expansion, though—it’s the culmination of more than a decade of work with one of the best development teams I’ve ever had the pleasure to be a part of.”
As Chilton moves on to another new, yet unannounced, project at Blizzard, the WoW game director role is being handed over to Ion Hazzikostas, previous assistant game director, and lead encounter designer.
“He’s 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. He also has an amazing team at his side—the same epic crew that brought you all the content you’re enjoying in Legion.”
Legion is due to get its first patch shortly. Patch 7.1 has been entitled Return to Karazhan which is exciting enough to veteran players as it means that they get to return to the much-love zone of Deadwind Pass’ and its abandoned castle. The patch will open up the Mythic 5-player Karazhan dungeon, introduce a new raid, and continues many of the stories in the Legion expansion as well as adding lots of new quests and other content.
There is no shortage of game material planned to this expansion so we are sure Hazzikostas will have plenty of work to do in his new role.
