by JR Cook - 2 months ago     show comments

It’s been three years since we’ve had a BlizzCon. Last time out, the big announcement was three WoW expansions at once with the Worldsoul Saga — we’re in the middle of that now with Midnight, and we still have The Last Titan to finish it out.

Blizzard’s whole motto for BlizzCon this year was “The Next Chapter,” and they never really got into what that meant during the opening ceremonies. I don’t think they had to, because they showed it instead. September 15. September 28. November 4. March 2027. Spring 2029. Spring 2030. Nearly every announcement came stapled to a date, and a couple of them are for games that didn’t even have a demo on the show floor.

That is not the Blizzard we’ve spent twenty years covering. That’s a company putting a stake in the ground. But before I get into what I think that means, let’s talk about the announcements themselves.

As you saw a couple of days ago, I did have a prediction article, and I hit the nail on the head on several of the announcements while being completely blindsided by a few more. Let’s dive into what I got right and what I missed.

What I Got Right

We knew StarCraft was going to show up at BlizzCon. The question was what. StarCraft 3 and an RTS seemed well out of the question considering that team no longer works at Blizzard. We knew Dan Hay (of Far Cry fame) had recently joined Blizzard and was likely working on a new shooter, with StarCraft being the most likely IP. That rumor got a lot more solid once we started seeing actual job openings talking about it.

So it was no surprise that we got an open world shooter in the StarCraft IP, simply titled STARCRAFT, scheduled to release in Spring 2030.

It was also no real secret that World of Warcraft would have its “classic plus” announcement. That came to fruition with World of Warcraft Forever. This looks to be a Vanilla style WoW experience where players get new zones, expanded zones, new dungeons, quests, and races, built around the idea that you’ll only ever level to 60. The game will keep branching from what the WoW experience has been, so it’s not so much going back in time and reliving WoW as it was 20+ years ago as it is getting a new experience with some nostalgia attached.

What I didn’t expect was how fast it’s getting here — it drops on November 4.

Hearthstone was hit or miss for me. I expected an expansion with something to do with the Sha and Pandaria, and with it the introduction of the Monk class. We did get the Monk, but not until March 2027, and the expansion itself is just another re-hash of the Old Gods called “Reign of the Black Empire.”

We expected Overwatch to get a new hero reveal, and we got that with Doctrine, along with some major reworks for Roadhog and Sombra.

And what I feel was the worst kept secret of BlizzCon: a Nintendo Switch 2 release of Diablo IV, coming September 15.

What I Completely Missed

Did you know about a dead game called Heroes of the Storm? Well, it’s apparently not dead yet, and perhaps Blizzard is reviving it in some ways. We got the announcement of a new hero, Xal’atath, coming September 28, with another hero promised later this year — and the press kit seems to hint at even more down the road.

I knew Diablo V was in development, but I was not expecting an announcement for another year, perhaps two. Instead we got not only the announcement but a release window of Spring 2029.

We’d heard rumblings of a Diablo Netflix animated series for years and years now, but I thought it had gone out the window when Blizzard got into a bit of a spat with Netflix over some executive hirings. Well, now we have a fully announced Diablo show, with hints of future endeavors with other franchises.

Last but not least, the thing that actually released today: Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom. A new Warcraft III expansion, and the first in 23 years. There were rumblings of a “new Warcraft RTS” that I ignored because I didn’t see them investing in a new RTS, but it never occurred to me that they’d release a new expansion for a game that came out 24 years ago.

What Was Missing

For as packed as this show was, a couple of things weren’t there. Chris Metzen was absent, which was a bit surprising to me, and so was any real talk about Warcraft heading into an era that spans the next several decades.

And while we did get World of Warcraft Forever, it does make you wonder about the future of “retail” WoW, because they never really dove into what they meant there. If the plan is two parallel versions of this game going forward, that’s a conversation Blizzard hasn’t had with us yet.

The Next Chapter

This was probably the most packed announcement BlizzCon ever, and I keep coming back to those dates. It is a bit surprising to see a couple of games announced with no demo at all in Diablo V and STARCRAFT — especially when they’re willing to put a season on it and say Spring 2029 and Spring 2030 this far out. It was also surprising to get new content released today for a game that’s 24 years old, and to get updates for a game long thought of as being dead.

This isn’t the “old Blizzard” where “it’s ready when it’s ready” and they’re obtuse about release dates. This is a Blizzard saying “here is what is coming, and WHEN you can expect it.”

That’s very likely a direct result of the Microsoft merger and Microsoft pushing on Blizzard to be the game developer they paid billions of dollars for. While other studios are getting contracted, I think it’s about time for Blizzard to get a fire under their ass and start putting out some new games — and Blizzard is showing that’s exactly what they intend to do, even stamping it as “it’ll be ready by this date” and making that commitment.

I’m unsure if this is a good thing or a bad thing yet. Dates are a promise, and promises are how you end up with a Warcraft III Reforged. But it has been obvious they needed to turn that page to the Next Chapter, and they decided to show their hand with that at BlizzCon 2026.