Moon Beast Productions has hired industry veteran Erich Schaefer.

The development vet has come on board as the company's new chief creative officer and is set to lead work on the firm's upcoming action RPG project. Schaefer has co-founded Blizzard North back in 1993 and has since helped set up three other developers in Flagship Studios, Runic Games and Double Damage Games.

He is perhaps best known for his work in the Diablo franchise.

“I’m extremely energized to be teaming up with Peter and Phil again. At this stage in my career, I’m pretty choosey,” Schaefer said.

“I want to work on projects that are fun and genuinely try to do something different. It’s impressive what the Moon Beast team has built in such a short time. It fired up my imagination with possibilities, and that’s a huge part of why I wanted to come aboard.”

Moon Beast's president and co-founder Peter Hu added: “We started Moon Beast to take a fresh look at ARPGs. So much of what we see today is a fairly linear evolution from the original Diablo. Going back and reinventing the isometric ARPG genre with Erich is like a dream come true for me. In this short time since we've reunited, we’ve generated some of the most incredible ideas and it’s sparked a creative drive that I haven't truly felt since the Diablo II days."

Moon Beast was set up by veterans of Blizzard back in 2022.