There’s been some shuffling around of positions at Blizzard recently, and for Diablo 4, David Kim has left the team and been replaced by Joe Piepiora.
You may remember the updates from David at BlizzCon and the latest development update, well don’t expect anymore because he’s has departed the Diablo 4 team and moved on to the World of Warcraft team.
David’s replacement comes from inside Blizzard and the Diablo 4 team itself. Joe Piepiora now takes on the role moving up the Diablo 4 team ranks from Lead Open World Designer, then Senior Game Designer, to his new role as Lead Systems Designer. Joe joined the Diablo 4 team in September 2019 so he’s got quite a few months under his belt already.
Previous to joining the Diablo 4 team, Joe was Lead Designer on Heroes of the Storm. Prior to joining Blizzard held key systems design roles at Carbine Studios working on the MMO WildStar. He also worked as a designer on Lord of the Rings Online.
With the delay of the latest World of Warcraft expansion which is due this month, David was probably pulled in to help get that out the door.
How the change will affect the direction of the game following the recent development update from David remains to be seen. It should not be a concern as he’s already been involved with the game and design choices and changes we saw in the recent development update.
Thanks GlassCannon.