With no BlizzCon (or BlizzConline) this year, fans of games like World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo are wondering when new announcements about the future of each game will be made. According to Blizzard leader Mike Ybarra, updates on what’s next for those franchises will be happening “over the coming weeks.”
Ybarra’s update comes in the form of a tweet, itself a response to a fan comment on the recent news that Blizzard is hiring for a survival game set in a new universe. A fan tweeted that Blizzard might want to “throw some manpower” at some of Blizzard’s existing games, to which Ybarra had this to say:
Blizzard is a big studio and we have talented and growing teams supporting live games as well. Over the coming weeks, you'll be hearing more on that from Warcraft and Overwatch. Diablo will follow. Stay tuned!
— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) January 25, 2022
Major announcements for some of Blizzard’s biggest franchises like World of Warcraft and Overwatch typically happen at BlizzCon, which normally takes place in November. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench into that system. Blizzard transitioned to an online BlizzCon event for February 2021, and had planned a similar online event for February 2022. BlizzCon 2022 was later canceled amidst ongoing fallout from multiple sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits and investigations involving Activision Blizzard.
Blizzard said at the time of the event’s cancelation that it was taking time to “reimagine” what BlizzCon could be in the future, and that future news surrounding various Blizzard franchises would come through official franchise channels, with members of the BlizzCon team supporting those efforts.
What all this means is that news like what World of Warcraft’s next expansion is going to be, updates on the state of Overwatch 2, and how Diablo IV is shaping up (just to name a few) are no longer attached to a major fan event, and can instead be announced whenever the development teams are ready. The fact that Blizzard casually tweeted out it was working on a brand-new survival game IP is evident of the fact that these kinds of major announcements could come at any time.
Activision Blizzard is currently in the process of being acquired by Microsoft in a $69 billion deal, pending regulatory approval. It’s currently unclear what the acquisition will mean for some of Blizzard’s biggest franchises in regards to those titles eventually appearing on Microsoft’s Game Pass service or becoming Xbox console exclusives. Diablo IV and Overwatch 2, while never having an official release window, were both recently delayed, with a presentation during an Activision Blizzard quarterly earnings call stating that both games would benefit from more development time.
Source: Gamespot
