Johnny Cash has also left the team of World of Warcraft. He worked on many features of the latest expansions.
In recent months, there have been only a few positive reports around Blizzard and specifically World of Warcraft. Even though Patch 9.2 Eternity’s End is slowly appearing on the horizon, there are still some negative news. Another one came a few hours ago, as another developer from Blizzard is leaving the company – and he was responsible for many popular features.
Who is it about? This refers to Johnny Cash. He was with Blizzard and the team around World of Warcraft for a full 12 years, most recently working as a Senior Game Designer on the MMORPG.
In his farewell tweet, Cash describes the departure as the “hardest decision he has ever made”.
What was he responsible for? A whole lot. Even though most features were of course not developed by him alone, he was significantly responsible for numerous contents. These included:
- The Pet Battle System (Cataclysm / Mists of Pandaria)
- Garrisons (Warlords of Draenor)
- Class Halls (Legion)
- Artifact Weapons (Legion)
- Questline for the Corrupted Ashbringer
- Questline for Hati’s return
Furthermore, he was significantly responsible for the development of several zones, such as Talador (Warlords of Draenor), Argus (Legion), and Stormsong Valley (Battle for Azeroth), before he was ultimately appointed to lead the quest design team.
What Cash will do after Blizzard is still unclear, but he plans to reveal that in the coming days.
What does this mean? It’s currently hard to predict. However, it seems likely that the release of the next expansion will suffer due to all the departures at Blizzard. In recent months, several prominent individuals in key positions around the WoW team have left. These are positions that now need to be filled again. Meanwhile, Blizzard is talking about a “brain drain,” where many clever developers are leaving. Whether they can all be replaced meaningfully remains to be seen with the next expansion.
When the new WoW expansion will be released and what it might bring has already been reported here.
