Mike Morhaime departed Blizzard in 2018 and after a short break, he’s back with a new game company called Dreamhaven. The new company also includes some very familiar Blizzard names.
The new company will include two game studios, Moonshot and Secret Door. Names involved with the projects also include Dustin Browder (Starcraft 2/Heroes of the Storm/Command & Conquer), Jason Chayes (Hearth Stone/Starcraft 2), Ben Thompson (Heroes of the Storm), Chris Sigaty (Hearthstone/StarCraft 2/Heroes of the Storm/Warcraft 3), Alan Dabiri (Heroes of the Storm) and Eric Dodds (Hearthstone). Both Moonshot and Secret Door will be working on separate so far unnamed titles.
These are some pretty big names tied to the new company and the two studios. It will be interesting to see if they manage to capture the magic of the early Blizzard days. That said, we have seen quite a few spin-offs by Blizzard employees that have not quite managed to make it. Flagship being the most memorable. We shall have to wait and see what they come up with. Dreamhaven will also be setting up in Irvine so Blizzard is going to have the competition right on its doorstep.
There are numerous articles about the new company including over at Gamesindustry.biz and Gamesbeat.