Ex-Westwood Designer Leaves EA For Blizzard

According to online reports, The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth RTS design director Dustin Browder is leaving Electronic Arts to join Blizzard as a senior designer. Browder has been with Electronic Arts since before the closure of famed real-time strategy developer Westwood Studios, and has worked on games such as Red Alert 2 and Command & Conquer: Generals. He will leave the company on March 9th and will work at Blizzard’s Irvine, California office under Rob Pardo – who has worked extensively on the WarCraft franchise. Browder has indicated to consumer game site GameSpy that he does not know what game he will be working on at Blizzard, but when asked whether it could be WarCraft IV or StarCraft II, he answered gleefully: "I hope so." What this means for the future of the Command & Conquer/Red Alert franchise is unclear, with producer Mark Skaggs currently enjoying a leave of absence to spend time with his family, but it seems likely that Electronic Arts would want to continue such a formerly top-selling brand in some form.