Bill Petras, a Blizzard veteran who worked on World of Warcraft and Overwatch, has died.
The news was shared onLinkedinby Harley D Huggins, a former developer at Blizzard and close friend of Petras. A celebration of life for Petras will be held in the coming days.
“I’m writing to share some heartbreaking news,” Huggins wrote.
“Bill Petras, a game development legend has unexpectedly passed away. Billy was an amazingly gifted artist who worked atBlizzard Entertainmentfor almost two decades. He was immensely proud of the work he did there, most notably as the Art Director forWorld of WarcraftandOverwatch.
“Billy and I started at Blizzard the same week and were close friends for 28 years. I will miss our regular, long, rambling conversations about life, game dev, games, art, comic books, toys, monster movies and Conan. He will be deeply missed by me and all who knew him.”
Petras worked in games for 24 years, during which he spent two spells at Blizzard. The first, from 1997 until 2005, saw him serve as the art director for World of Warcraft, overseeing the era during which World of Warcraft became a global phenomenon.
He would then leave Blizzard to work at Red5 games on Firefall, before returning in January 2010 to oversee the development of Overwatch as the game’s art director.
His last role at Blizzard saw him serve as art director forOverwatch 2. He departed the company in October 2021.
