There’s a new interview over at Wowhead with Chris Metzen, who returned to Blizzard as a Creative Advisor late last year. The interview covers Metzen’s his return to Blizzard after leaving back in 2016 and a new 5e tabletop game that his company, Warchief Gaming, released, Auroboros: Coils of the Serpent.
Auroboros is the first release from Warchief Gaming, a tabletop studio. Metzen’s return to Blizzard is alongside that tabletop work he’s now doing. He talks about his two decades as an artist and developer at Blizzard and how this influenced tabletop design, because there are some things that tabletop does differently. One of those things is the ability to do longer, involving, and sometimes even different storytelling genres woven in.
“That is why some ideas just aren’t going to work within that video game system. Some of the big themes are just too much for some video games, right? We argued a lot about Starcraft II, for instance - I wanted it to feel like “Gone with the Wind” in space - you know, this kind of sweeping tragic romance. But in the end, a lot of designers were like “Dude. Nobody wants that, right? They just want to feel like a badass general and slaughter Zerg …”
Metzen is also asked whether or not he and the others at Warchief Gaming would aspire to, or even consider, turning Auroboros into a video game. His answer reaffirms his commitment and makes his return a lot more understandable.
“If I’m thinking about video games at all I want to make sure I’m focused on Blizzard. Maybe there will be licensing opportunities or something at the end of the day, but that is not where my head is today. I want to make good on my commitment to Blizzard, and I don’t think I’d ever make video games anywhere else than Blizzard.”
Initially, at Blizzard, Metzen’s work in this new advisory role is on World of Warcraft, but this is set to expand later.
