Blizzard acquires Spellbreak developer as it closes doors on the battle royale

Proletariat’s 100-person team will move onto World of Warcraft development.

Blizzard has scooped up developer Proletariat for an unknown amount.

The news comes mere hours after the Boston-based developer announced it would be calling time on battlemage royale Spellbreak, which is set to shut down sometime in early 2023. Proletariat has already been working with Blizzard since May, with the deal seeing the 100-person team officially integrated. According to VentureBeat, the team will be moving over to work on World of Warcraft along with its upcoming Dragonflight expansion.

It’s the second developer in recent memory to be folded into Activision-Blizzard’s wider team. January 2021 saw Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 developer Vicarious Visions pivot to supporting Blizzard games before merging completely with the studio in October 2021. Toys For Bob is a similar case: while it’s still retained its name, the studio was assigned to act as a support developer to Call of Duty: Warzone while continuing support on Crash Bandicoot 4 back in May 2021.