According to the announcement, Proletariat (Spellbreak, Asheron’s Call, Lord of the Rings Online) has been working with the World of Warcraft development team since May, and will see its reported 100-person team fully integrated into Blizzard over the coming months. With World of Warcraft: Dragonflight coming this year, it's assumed that this massive acquisition is no doubt helping the next major expansion make it out on time.

The announcement comes as Proletariat plans to shutdown servers for its multiplayer action-spellcasting game Spellbreak in 2023. The acquisition, which follows on from Vicarious Visions joining Blizzard to support Diablo, looks to be very strategic in keeping a regular flow of content coming to WoW for the foreseeable future.

"We are putting players at the forefront of everything we do, and we are working hard to both meet and exceed their expectations," said Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Entertainment. "A critical part of taking care of players is taking care of our teams—making sure we have the resources to produce experiences our communities will love while giving our teams space to explore even more creative opportunities within their projects. Proletariat is a perfect fit for supporting Blizzard's mission in bringing high-quality content to our players more often."

"We are incredibly excited to be joining Blizzard Entertainment," said Proletariat co-founder and CEO, Seth Sivak. "Our team has always strived to put players first, and in working with the World of Warcraft team, we have learned that we are completely aligned in our commitments to innovation, quality, investing in our talent, authentic communication, and representation—both in and out of the games we make. World of Warcraft is one of the most influential games ever made and we can't wait to be a part of that legacy and to help build an even brighter future for Azeroth."

Interestingly the press release features a quote from Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, a figure that has been at the centre of the troubling news to surface about Blizzard in recent years. Who states that the plan is to hire hundreds of new developers specifically to support World of Warcraft in the next couple of years. With Activision Blizzard itself being acquired by Microsoft, it'll be interesting to see how this all pans out in light of the company's very serious issues.