It’s that time of year again! It’s time for BlizzCon – one of the biggest gaming conventions of the year. Now, if you have been following the gaming scene, you would know that there are gamers and then there are Blizzard fans. Fans of Blizzard Entertainment are notorious for being one of the most vocal and fanatical group of gamers when it comes to the IPs that Blizzard holds; particularly Overwatch, Diablo, StarCraft and Warcraft.
This year, Blizzard Entertainment’s annual BlizzCon will be happening from 19 February to 20 February 2021. In light of the pandemic, the conference will be an online one, open to the public for free. You can take part by visiting their official BlizzCon website for updates and all the information you need about the conference.
With all that information out of the way, as Deckard Cain says, “Stay awhile and listen” as we give you a rundown of what we want to see at BlizzCon 2021.
Diablo IV
Diablo is arguably one of Blizzard Entertainment’s largest IPs. The dungeon crawler was first introduced in the late 90s and quickly became one of the company’s most beloved franchises. Since then, there have been 3 major instalments into the series that follow the developments of the world of Sanctuary. The most recent being Diablo III which continued the story of the Soulstones and the Prime Evils.
In the years since the release in 2012, Diablo fans have been waiting for and theorising about Diablo IV. The hype for Diablo was fueled even more by numerous teases from Blizzard about a possible 4th instalment. At BlizzCon 2019, we finally got a glimpse of Diablo IV with the first cinematic trailer which introduced us to Lilith – Mother of the Nephalem, Queen of the Succubi and Daughter of Mephisto, Lord of Hatred.
With all that hype and no news since, we want to see more of the upcoming instalment – particularly when it comes to the game’s mechanics and gameplay. So far, we’ve only seen a brief gameplay trailer which revealed three of the player classes available in the game: the barbarian, the sorceress and the druid. The gameplay trailer showed off some of the return mechanics which series veterans should be familiar with. We also know that the series will be more open this round with players travelling between the many regions of Sanctuary
We’ve had enough teasing Blizzard. It’s time to reveal more about the game this year – possibly new classes and even more about some of the new features and mechanics that are coming back to the series. But more importantly – we want a release date! When will we be returning to Sanctuary?
Diablo Immortal
Announced at BlizzCon 2018 to a rather unimpressed audience, Diablo Immortal is Blizzard’s first foray into the mobile MMO (massively multiplayer online) gaming scene. It is developed in partnership with NetEase. However, since the unceremonious reception, we’ve not heard much about it. In 2019, NetEase’s CFO said the game was pretty much ready. August 2020 saw the release of a new trailer while December 2020 saw a closed alpha.
That said, we only know little of the game. To date, we know that game is set 5 years after the events of Diablo II but before Diablo III. Players will be starting in Wortham and be travelling with Deckard Cain by their side. They will be facing the undead and cultists in the beginning. They will be locating and destroying shards of the Worldstone in their travels. Like other instalments of Diablo, players will be able to choose between six player classes: the Crusader, the Necromancer, the Monk, the Barbarian, the Wizard and the Demon Hunter.
With the release of the open alpha, we really want to finally see a release of the game into the wild. If you’re like me, you’ve probably already pre-registered for the game on the Google Play and App Stores. We’ve seen a stream of reviews from publications that got access to the closed alpha.
Overwatch 2
Overwatch is Blizzard Entertainment’s first multiplayer first-person shooter game. It was released in 2016 and remains one of the company’s best IPs in the realm of competitive, professional eSports.
Blizzard made the announcement of Overwatch 2 back at BlizzCon 2019. The new instalment promised more characters and even backwards compatible gameplay with Overwatch. The company showed off many features including a new PvE (player versus environment) cooperative mode.
However, like Diablo 4, there has been little information since then. We actually want to know if the game is ready for prime time – which seems unlikely. That said, knowing Blizzard, we’ll settle for more shorts that give us more to love about the Overwatch world.
StarCraft
A decade after the release of the first entry into StarCraft II, the series seems to be on ice. Just recently, Blizzard Entertainment announced that support for the game will be reduced to a bare minimum. The series has had a tumultuous decade with Blizzard with most of its veteran developers leaving Blizzard.
However, we still harbour some hope that Blizzard will bring back Jim Raynor, Sarah Kerrigan and Zeratul. We actually want to know what the future of the franchise is. It would be a nice to see Blizzard bring back StarCraft for a third instalment.
Hearthstone & World of Warcraft
Two of the company’s biggest, longest running online games. The pandemic has thankfully reinvigorated the games with more players returning to them. We would like to see more development in card packs for Hearthstone and perhaps some big announcements for WoW.
