There appears to be a new move at Blizzard. Late last week, Hearthstone principal game designer Mike Donais announced in a live stream on Dog (via Hearthpwn) that he has left Hearthstone development.

"As of January, I am no longer working on Hearthstone. I am still at Blizzard."

Donais' departure came as something of a shock, especially given that he had been one of the most prominent members of Team 5 since Ben Brode dropped the mic in April 2018.

Senior designer Dean Ayala confirmed on Reddit that Donais is currently working on something new." He is still advising us and just recently, even though he had already moved on from the team, he suggested us to design a Robomarlock for Battlegrounds. Thank you, Mike, for all your help. I can always count on you for Marlock designs and Marlock-related puns.

"Since Battlegrounds is now the responsibility of the card design team, the same team working on the expansion will also be responsible for content creation for that game mode.

Whatever Donais is doing now, he will have the help of Peter Warren, who also tweeted about the move the next day. [Both have extensive experience with card-based games, Whalen having created the deck-building roguelike Dream Quest before joining Blizzard, and Donais having worked on Magic: The Gathering and Duels of the Planewalkers" game adaptations. (How quickly the months go by!).

Losing two of its top developers may seem ominous for Hearthstone, but change does happen, and perhaps fans can look forward to a change in approach going forward. Will it be "Hearthstone 2" or "IIearthstone"? No, probably not. But something is going on behind the scenes. As soon as we know more details, we will pass them on.