Today, Senior Art Director Sam “Samwise” Didier announced his retirement from Blizzard on his personal Twitter/X after an impressive 32 years with the company.
Joining the company (then known as Silicon & Synapse) in 1991 after following up on a newspaper advertisement that simply read “make art for video games,” Didier is the one to thank for Blizzard’s iconic art style, being the art director for flagship series Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft as well as a producer for several other games. Didier also came up with the name for the Warcraft franchise, which just had some very exciting reveals during BlizzCon 2023 last week.
His contributions for Blizzard don’t stop there. Among providing writing, voice acting, the Pandaren species, and sculpting, Didier also put his love for metal and rock music into being the lead vocalist for the band Elite Tauren Chieftain (ETC). ETC is comprised of various Blizzard employees and performed original songs and parodies based on World of Warcraft. The band’s last performance was perhaps one of the most impressive, as they opened for Metallica during BlizzCon 2014’s closing ceremony. In his spare time, he’s worked as an illustrator for short stories and novels, as well as creating his original work Grimbeard: Tales of the Last Dwarf, a collection of short stories featuring the titular Grimbeard after he accidentally winds up a thousand years into the future.
In his post, Didier thanks everyone for the amazing time he’s had with Blizzard; from learning how to use a computer to forming friendships, he is beyond thankful for what Blizzard has provided him.
Didier’s post was met with hundreds of supportive and equally thankful replies, including one from Blizzard Entertainment’s President, Mike Ybarra, who thanks Didier for what he has done for artists everywhere.
Didier closes his post with “ABC, my friends.” While it is important to “always be creating,” perhaps the better advice he gives is to “always draw big shoulder pads.”