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Blizzard Entertainment has confirmed the departure of three veteran developers; Dustin Browder (Heroes of the Storm director, StarCraft II lead designer), Eric Dodds (Hearthstone director), and Jason Chayes (Hearthstone production director).

Speaking to Kotaku, Blizzard confirmed those members had left “months ago”.

“Yes, Eric, Dustin, and Jason made the decision to move on from Blizzard a few months ago. They have been and always will be considered members of the Blizzard family, and we’ve loved working with them over the years. We wish them the best for the future. That said, we want to make sure it’s clear that development of Blizzard games has always been a collaborative effort between many talented, longstanding teammates here continuing that good work.”

The three were some of the staff that had left after the cancellation of a StarCraft first-person shooter in May 2019. At the time Kotaku cited anonymous sources claiming the project was canceled to focus on Diablo IV and Overwatch 2; both leaked in later months, and speculated to be announced at this year’s BlizzCon.

Activision Blizzard have laid off numerous employees over the last two years. First in late December 2018– even paying the employees to leave- and then nearly 800 laid off in February 2019.

In other recent news, Ex-Xbox vice president Mike Ybarra has joined Blizzard Entertainment as their executive vice president and general manager.