World of Warcraft game director Tom Chilton is stepping away from the fantasy MMO after over a decade.  

The announcement was made by Chilton himself on the battle.net forums, where he revealed he's moving on to focus on another, as of yet unannounced, project within Blizzard. 

Chilton's parting gift came in the form of the recent Legion expansion pack, which gave the long-running franchise a shot in the arm by selling 3.3 million copies in under 24 hours. 

Following the launch of Legion, World of Warcraft's concurrent player count hit heights not seen since the launch of the Cataclysm expansion back in 2010. 

World of Warcraft lead game designer Ion Hazzikostas, who's almost spent a decade with the series himself, will be stepping up as game director in Chilton's stead.

"My personal journey working on WoW as game director is at an end, but my journey with Blizzard isn’t. I’ll still be here, but will be focusing on another project within the company," wrote Chilton.

"I know that WoW will be in great hands with Ion at the helm. He’s been an integral part of the team for more than eight years and has contributed to so many aspects of the game’s development -- from class design to encounter design and nearly everything in between."