Blizzard’s BlizzCon is arguably one of the biggest gaming events of the year. However, in light of the pandemic, the gaming conference has evolved into BlizzConline for its past iteration into an online BlizzConline. In fact, earlier this year, the game developer announced a new approach for BlizzCon which would span both online and offline, in-person experiences. However, it looks like that may not be happening after all.
The company has taken online to announce to the community that the upcoming BlizzCon planned for February 2022 will not be happening. In their statement, the company states that, “we would also like to take the time to reimagine what a BlizzCon event of the future could look like”. That said, it was the same words used earlier this year in their announcement for the 2022 BlizzCon. The event is one of the company’s crowning achievements that have allowed fans of game franchises like Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft to rally and feel part of the Blizzard experience. The absence of the convention, in any form, could prove to be more a quandry for Blizzard.
Source: Blizzard
However, Blizzard isn’t leaving fans without updates and announcements. In their update, the company states, “One more thing we wanted to make clear: even though we aren’t holding BlizzConline in February, we’ll still be making announcements and updates for our games. We’re proud of our teams and the progress they’ve made across our games. We have a lot of exciting upcoming news and releases to share with you.”. Fans will have lots to look forward to come February 2022 by the sounds of it.
The cancellation of Blizzard’s annual BlizzCon seems to be one of the latest casualties in their unfolding legal saga. Blizzard has recently come under fire for a myriad of reasons including employer misconduct and sexual harassment. BlizzCon was ground zero for some of the most egregious sexual harassment allegations thanks to the “Cosby Suite”. Since then the allegations and issues that have arisen have become a hot topic in the gaming industry which is currently undergoing a renaissance.
Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon is arguably one of the biggest gaming conventions held every year. However, last year, BlizzCon joined the plethora of conventions and trade shows that opted to not have their physical event. It looks like this year is the same.
The Executive Producer if BlizzCon, Saralyn Smith, made the announcement on a post on the official BlizzCon website. The main reason for the cancellation? The pandemic. Smith noted that the evolving regulations and situations surrounding the current pandemic have cause significant setbacks due to uncertainties. In the events industry, the uncertainties can be the largest pain to deal with.
“Building an in-person BlizzCon is an epic and complex affair that takes many months of preparation—not just for us, but also for the many talented production partners, esports pros, hosts, entertainers, artists, and other collaborators we team up with locally and globally to put all of the pieces together. The ongoing complexities and uncertainties of the pandemic have impacted our ability to properly move forward on many of these fronts, and ultimately we’re now past the point where we’d be able to develop the kind of event we’d want to create for you in November.“
Saralyn Smith, Executive Producer of BlizzCon
However, the cancellation of BlizzCon 2021 isn’t as sombre as it may seem. It looks like the conference will be taking a form similar to BlizzConline which took place earlier this year. Saralyn Smith notes that the team is already at work planning for the event to take place early next year. She also noted that the team is exploring having smaller, more contained in-person gatherings in addition to the online press conferences and sessions that BlizzConline had this year.
It looks like the community has to wait a little longer for news on Blizzard’s IPs which include Diablo, StarCraft, WarCraft and Overwatch. This year’s BlizzCon was anticipated to have updates for Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal, Overwatch 2 among others. While we have about another 10 months to wait for updates, Diablo fans have Diablo 2 Resurrected to look forward to this year.
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.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment
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.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment
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.
