Diablo Creator to Lead Marvel MMO Development for Gazillion

San Mateo-based Gazillion is fast becoming a major player in this industry. Not only does the company own NetDevil and Slipgate Ironworks, but you may recall that Gazillion signed a 10-year licensing deal with Marvel as well. Today, Gazillion got another boost with the hiring of David Brevik, who's best known for his work on the Diablo franchise. Brevik will serve as Studio Director for Gazillion's Gargantuan studio, where he will lead development efforts on the Marvel Universe MMO for PC and consoles.

“I’m a huge fan of comic books, Super Heroes, and MMORPGs, so the chance to lead the creative efforts for the Marvel Universe MMO is an amazing opportunity. Gazillion’s mission to bring MMOs to the mainstream while maintaining the depth in gameplay that enthusiast gamers demand is something that deeply resonates with me,” said Brevik, who's also participating on a panel about the state of MMOs at Comic-Con this week. “Marvel is a perfect fit for this mission, and I couldn’t imagine a better venue to announce our efforts than Comic-Con.”

“As the creative and technical force behind the Diablo franchise and Battle.Net, David is an immensely talented game industry veteran who is responsible for bringing role playing games and online gaming more generally to an extremely large and thankful audience around the world,” added Rob Hutter, CEO of Gazillion. “We’re thrilled that he’s chosen to bring his vision and design leadership to the development of our landmark MMO franchise with Marvel.”

Brevik was President of Blizzard North for seven years, where he served as Project Lead, Design Lead and Lead Programmer on both Diablo and Diablo II. The Diablo franchise has sold over 20 million copies to date. As mentioned by Huttler above, Brevik also launched Blizzard’s online gaming service, Battle.Net. He was most recently a Director at Flagship Studios.