DICE senior producer Patrick Liu has left the Battlefield 3 studio to join Rovio, the studio can confirm. This marks the second high profile departure from DICE this month.

General Manager at Rovio Stockholm Oskar Burman has confirmed the move on Twitter by saying, “Excited to finally reveal our first hire! Game developer legend @pottan will join as Creative Director of Rovio Stockholm!”

Liu’s LinkedIn profile shows that he served as senior producer at DICE for over five years.

The departure of Liu marks the second high profile resignation at DICE this month. Liu follows Battlefield 3 lead designer David Goldfarb, who flew the coop to join Starbreeze Studios as a game director.

on his departure, Goldfarb stated, “I’ve worked on these huge games, and that was great, but I really wanted to work on smaller, tighter, and more intimate projects that are more gameplay driven, and I saw the opportunity to do that here. I talked to a lot of places but I felt the best fit for me was Starbreeze and Overkill because they have a really interesting history and a lot of games I really like.”

“Making big projects is really exhausting and for me,” he added, “I felt like I needed a change of venue and I really wanted to work on something that I personally felt I was interested in, which apparently is crime. I just wanted to get closer to things that I love and this was a great match for me.”

Patrick Liu has yet to make a statement regarding his departure, but eyebrows will surely be raised at the sight of two high profile figures leaving DICE in such a short time frame.

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Battlefield 3 has performed exceptionally well since it launched in October last year. DICE has recently come under fire from some circles for introducing a premium pass for the shooter, despite selling over 1.3 million subscriptions by the end of last financial year, as well as announcing Battlefield 4 – some say prematurely.

With Battlefield 3: Armored Kill gearing up to launch and the incoming release of Aftermath and Endgame, the series seems to be in rude health, yet questions will undoubtedly be asked regarding both Liu and Goldfarb’s departure.

We’ll keep ears to the ground for new updates on the matter as they happen.