Blizzard Producer Claims Studio Is Creating ‘Crisis Maps’ as More Employees Depart

A producer at Blizzard has taken to Twitter to express frustration at a series of departures from the World of Warcraft studio, saying the team is making “crisis maps” of what they can and cannot ship due to so many employees leaving.

Being loud about it because I’ve lost yet *another* person this week.

Blizzard is losing amazing talent because someone in power doesn’t listen to the game directors who make his products. DE&I also means diversity of thought, especially when it’s backed by data and financials.

— Adam ? #ABetterABK (@Glaxigrav) April 18, 2023

In a thread earlier this week, Adam “Glaxigrav” lamented that they had lost “*another* person this week,” saying that Blizzard “is losing amazing talent because someone in power doesn’t listen to the game directors who make his products.”

Later in the thread, Glaxigrav added that the studio is “creating crisis maps of what we can or cannot ship,” and that they “literally have a schedule I strike out as people hand in notice.”

When reached for comment on this, a Blizzard spokesperson said that creating crisis maps is “not a team practice for WoW. However, making decisions around priorities, iterating, and ensuring quality are everyday parts of game development.”

Glaxigrav isn’t alone in their frustrations. Senior game designer on World of Warcraft Allison Steele chimed in too, attributing at least some of the recent attrition to Blizzard’s forced return-to-office policy, which Glaxigrav notes elsewhere was still set for July as recently as April 6. The mandate was announced back in February, with Activision worker requirements starting this month. The plan is reportedly unpopular internally.

forced rto has cost us some amazing people and will continue to cost us more in the coming months.

it is a terrible, shortsighted, self-destructive policy that is only weakening our ability to deliver the kind of game we want to make and our players deserve. https://t.co/1M94XLJGY2

— Allison Steele, GameObject (cohost.org/trulyaliem) (@SteeleGame) April 19, 2023

“forced rto has cost us some amazing people and will continue to cost us more in the coming months,” Steele wrote. “it is a terrible, shortsighted, self-destructive policy that is only weakening our ability to deliver the kind of game we want to make and our players deserve.”

Based on these and other tweets, it appears that many of these departures are impacting the World of Warcraft Dragonflight team, an expansion that has been largely well-received by critics and fans alike.

Activision Blizzard leadership has clashed with its workers on numerous other occasions in the past few years, beginning with a 2021 lawsuit alleging the company fostered a “fray boy” culture of sexual harassment and unequal pay. Since then, it’s seen employee walkouts, multiple clashes with the NLRB, and two unions formed in its ranks at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.