Former World Of Warcraft Lead Designer Rob Pardo Founds Bonfire Studios

Rob Pardo spent 17 years working at Blizzard and was a lead designer for World of Warcraft. After leaving the company in 2014, he announced the formation of Bonfire Studios today, September 12, 2016.

The nascent company hasn't announced any games yet, but they will likely focus on online play, whether that be on PC, mobile, or both.

Pardo is focused on building a team of industry veterans; a small celebrity team.

Bonfire Studios currently includes Min Kim, former head of Nexon North America; Nick Carpenter, former Blizzard cinematic guru; Josh Mosqueira, Diablo 3 game director; and Matthew Versluys, former Blizzard technical director.

Pardo wrote:

To ensure our developers have a big impact we are organizing them into small but powerful and diverse superhero teams, like the Avengers. We believe you can create epic games with small teams of talented, self-driven game developers, where each team is deeply connected to their players and empowered to make the best decisions to evolve their game without bureaucracies, committees or middle management in their way.

Bonfire Studios has already raised $25 million from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Riot Games (Tencent).

I'm curious to see what the studio creates. My bet is on a mobile title but we shall see (all my money is on mobile these days).