Long-time Blizzard staffer Bill Petras has passed away. 

The news was announced in a post on LinkedIn from company veteran Harley D. Huggins II, who revealed that Petras had passed away "unexpectedly". He worked at Blizzard for almost 20 years over two stints and during his time at the company, he contributed to StarCraft, World of Warcraft and both Overwatch games. 

"Billy was an amazingly gifted artist who worked at Blizzard Entertainment for almost two decades. He was immensely proud of the work he did there, most notably as the art director for World of Warcraft and Overwatch," Huggins said. 

"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."