14 DAY TRIAL // Jay Wilson, the Game Director for Diablo 3, has just confirmed that he's moving on to a new project inside Blizzard and will hand over the current role-playing dungeon crawler to a new person who'll be in charge of its future development.
Diablo III came out in May and entertained millions upon millions of longtime fans, even if many complained of certain decisions made by Blizzard, like the mandatory online connection or the real-money Auction House.
Now, the man responsible for Diablo 3, Jay Wilson, has revealed that he's stepping down from his role as Game Director and will move onto a new project currently in development at Blizzard.
"I recently celebrated my seven-year anniversary working on Diablo III, and while it's been one of the most challenging and rewarding periods of my life, I've reached a point creatively where I'm looking forward to working on something new," he told fans on the Blizzard forums.
"The powers that be at Blizzard have been gracious enough to give me that opportunity. Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be moving off of the Diablo III project and transitioning elsewhere within Blizzard. This decision was not an easy one for me, and not one I made quickly, but ultimately it's what I feel is right."
As you can imagine, Wilson tried to soothe fans' worries about the fate of Diablo 3, which is set to receive a brand new patch in the near future as well as features that have been promised for some time now.
"The first thing I want to assure you all is that this will not negatively impact our ongoing support of Diablo III. We have lots of things planned for the future, and those plans will carry forward as normal. I also won't be abandoning the team, and will remain available to them during the transition period while we determine who will take over duties as game director."
"I'm leaving Diablo III in good hands, and my departure will not jeopardize the progress of the game as we continue to do what we do: listen, play, and improve," Wilson emphasized.
Many who criticized Diablo 3 singled out Wilson as the person with the bad ideas so it's going to be interesting to see what will happen to the game once he's no longer involved with it.