We could be ready to see something monumental on the horizon from Blizzard. Here’s the low down – Blizzard’s annual festival-like event, BlizzCon is kicking off on November 2.
Blizzard takes that time to celebrate its different games — Starcraft II, Overwtch, Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft, Diablo and Hearthstone, and to celebrate the communities that make up the games. It’s a festival of previews, hype, nostalgia, and people getting together to share what they love.
This year however, something is breaking the mould — for the first time in three years it will be Diablo, not Overwatch, on the main stage the opening day of BlizzCon 2018.
The top spot at BlizzCon is typically reserved for something of massive hype proportions. In 2014, Blizzard used the same slot to reveal Overwatch. In previous years, expansion packs for WoW have taken the place. But this year, for the first time in a very long time, Diablo is taking the spotlight.
We don’t know what for as of yet, but if it’s the first thing to be shown, it’s almost certain to be massive.
Not long ago, Blizzard put a post up on the Diablo blog about Diablo at BlizzCon 2018. They don’t give us a lot to work with what the content might be, but here’s a snippet from the post; “we currently have multiple teams working on different Diablo projects and we can’t wait to tell you all about them . . . when the time is right”
So simply out of speculation, that sounds like Diablo 4 might just not be ready to make its way out at BlizzCon. But what could it be? It drives me insane just thinking about it.
My hope is on something lore related. In recent years, Blizzard haven’t had their lore game up to scratch — the release of Battle for Azeroth was a nice breath of lore into the MMO, but across the other titles, we don’t see a lot of lore at all. So I’m hoping for an expansion pack of some sorts, like the Reaper of Souls but in 2018, and fresh.
They owe it to Diablo 3 especially; StarCraft 2 got absolutely shelled with lore across the release of its expansion packs and its books, and Overwatch fans enjoy a selection of comics and cinematic shorts that are teething with lore.
In fact, Diablo is arguably the most underappreciated Blizzard property, and the vein of lore for the game is no exception. Between the release of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction and 2012’s Diablo 3, the game didn’t even have any comics, books or online updates to its lore.
But then again, Diablo fans do get a decent amount of content. Ongoing updates, and the launch of Diablo 3 for Nintendo Switch in early November is something to look out for. I’ve got my hopes on Tyrael getting the spotlight for a while.
Blizzcon kicks off on November 3 for Australians with a Virtual Ticket.
