Blizzard

Chris Metzen Announces Warchief Gaming Tabletop Company

posted 2020/10/27 at 12:14 PM by perculia

VenturebeatFor the past couple of years, Metzen has been enjoying playing tabletop games with friends in a club, talking with them for hours at a time and enjoying himself. That helped him heal his mind from a kind of burnout and it made him hungry to create worlds again.

Metzen opened up about that sense of burnout and creative exhaustion. He felt like he didn’t have a safety net, and that asking for help wasn’t an easy option. He left, relaxed, and is recharged again.

“Tabletop is where I learned to be creative with my friends growing up, playing D&D, playing Warhammer,” he said. “Loving these ideas and playing these games in the same space as my best friends. Those are some of my most cherished memories. At 47, I come back to that. Even after that glorious Blizzard experience, I want that intimate scale again. This is my path.”

He added, “I’ve always felt that even things like World of Warcraft, which is still my favorite video game of all time, they’re reaching for what D&D does. I don’t mean to sound arrogant in saying that. For my entire career at Blizzard, I was trying to chase the feelings that tabletop had always given me. Whether I was playing a role-playing game or a wargame, I just wanted to feel those things with the people I was playing with.”
Frost GiantDreamhavenspoken candidly“I think I damaged my transmission a bit, kind of ground my clutch down,” he said. “Getting back into this stuff with Mike and starting this company, I think I’ve found it at last. Being that man at home and being a creative dude in my daily life. It feels good. It’s hard to collate all of that. But I think this feels like balance.”Metzen recalled that the time when he felt most creative was when he was working the hardest, going back and forth between work on World of Warcraft and Warcraft III — two games that eventually became blockbusters.

“I was so in love with it all. I was in love with the product,” Metzen said. “I was in love with the way that the jobs felt and the teams I was working with. Once World of Warcraft came out and got big, things changed. It was still awesome, and it’s still awesome today. But we went from being this tight little development shop to being a service provider of this big giant game. That comes with its own rise and fall, its own new conditions and concerns.”

For Metzen, Warchief takes him back to that kind of creative time, before Blizzard became huge.

“It’s building ideas for your friends and laughing at it as we work every day,” he said. “There’s a purity to the smaller scale. Blizzard did exceptional work, but it was at a massive scale. It’s hard to control and keep the train on the tracks. And they’re running multiple trains. They’re all excellent. It’s just a lot of mindshare. This feels like it’s so much more freeing and simplified, the creative process."

Comments

« First ‹ Prev

123 4 … 6

Next › Last »

Comment by MatrixwolfWait does this confirm Thrall dies? recently get the thrall shadowlands statue and now this?Comment by WolfEatsGirlIts a table top gaming company, not a video game company. Get that doom and gloom out of here and wish them well.Comment by LedxIn all honesty, is there any point to have faith in Blizzard? To actually support them? All of their top guys have left and started something new. This has to tell us fans something.Comment by xenolithixmental health issues due to fandom toxicityComment by Belegondid you read the article, i think you missed the word tabletopComment by DoomSlaphttps://twitter.com/DaveKosak/status/1320920900787527681

blizzard is deadComment by glowpipeIn all honesty, is there any point to have faith in Blizzard? To actually support them? All of their top guys have left and started something new. This has to tell us fans something.Comment by Dremallmental health issues due to fandom toxicityComment by nephethiys

There's more to it than just that. If all your top executives are leaving and several have said or hinted at being unhappy....it says something.Comment by davemacawesomethis should be interestingComment by HadesilloI guess Chris was getting bored haha
Good luck with this project.Comment by Rydernew blood new ideas, let the veterans retire/rest.Comment by MatrixwolfIts a table top gaming company, not a video game company. Get that doom and gloom out of here and wish them well.Comment by kornfreak78I'm happy for Metzen finding passion for something again. Very cool to see.Comment by DarkIgnis12I'm probably being crazy, but I'd love a new Warcraft TTRPG designed by Metzen. Since Chris is still voicing his characters, I guess he's maintaining a good work relationship with Blizz, so maybe a collaboration is possible?Comment by mrlogatoIn all honesty, is there any point to have faith in Blizzard? To actually support them? All of their top guys have left and started something new. This has to tell us fans something.Comment by russbakrah we all travel in circles do we notComment by NoxTheWiseIts a table top gaming company, not a video game company. Get that doom and gloom out of here and wish them well.Comment by draco2000Just being Metzen will take buisness away from Blizzard. He is an amazing person with out of this worlds ideas. Table top gaming, something that wont relay on the internet, back to the basic's of gaming and having a great time with friends is an amazing idea. Cant wait to see whats next !Comment by PharunedGreat news! Good luck to them, I'm excited to see what they're working on.

« First ‹ Prev

123 4 … 6

Next › Last »

« Next Post