Spellbreak Developer to be Acquired By Blizzard to Work on World of Warcraft, Spellbreak to Shut Down

Spellbreak developer Proletariat will seemingly be acquired by Blizzard to work on World of Warcraft, with a major consequence being that the wizard-based Battle Royale be shut down.

Proletariat announced the closure of Spellbreak yesterday (June 28) before VentureBeat later reported that there was plans for the studio and its 100 members of staff to be purchased by Blizzard. The team, which has reportedly been working with Blizzard since May, will focus on World of Warcraft and its upcoming Dragonflight expansion.

Specific terms of the acquisition — which will allow Blizzard to hit its quality and timing targets for the long-running MMO — have not yet been disclosed.

In its statement released yesterday, Proletariat thanked the millions of people who played Spellbreak since it launched in Early Access. "We are grateful to everyone in the game’s community for exploring the magical worlds and experiences we created together," it said.

The game was officially released in August 2020 and received a positive reception overall, eventually even gaining a place on IGN's top ten Battle Royale games list. In our 8/10 review, we said: "Spellbreak is a refreshing burst of magical fresh air for the battle royale genre thanks to its captivating combat and flashy style, but its map has room to improve."

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Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.