Chris Metzen, the Senior VP of Story and Franchise Development at Blizzard Entertainment, has announced his retirement from the company after 23 years. He helped to create massive game hits like the Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft franchises, along with Blizzard's most recent game Overwatch.
Metzen revealed that his retirement from Blizzard is not a cover for something else, in a post on the Blizzard forums:
The reason I use the word "retire" is because I'm not going to some other company or starting up new projects or anything remotely like that. It's been a long, amazing stretch of years. Now it's time to slow it down. Rest. Lay around on the couch and get fat. Well, fatter.…
Seriously though, I'll be focusing on the one thing that matters most to me in all the world—my family. They're the core of my life and the source of my deepest joy and inspiration. In addition to raising our two little ones, we recently welcomed our new baby into the family! Being home with them all, having time and space to really live…to love my wife with all my strength…that's my career now.
There's no word on if Blizzard plans to fill Metzen's position. He joined Blizzard in 1993 and began working on artwork for the original Warcraft game. Later he expanded his work by helping to create the fictional backstory for Warcraft II, along with some of the RTS game's missions.
Later he helped to create the universe for the first Diablo game, and served as lead designer for Starcraft. After that Metzen contributed story and designs for games like Diablo II, World of Warcraft and others, including the most recent game, the team shooter Overwatch