BlizzCon 2019: Highlights and Impressions

BlizzCon 2019 came and went, as it does every year. There were some big announcements along with big controversy surrounding the World of Warcraft publisher. Without going too much into the matter, Blizzard punished a Hearthstone pro for supporting protests happening in Hong Kong right now. The controversy lies in the fact that Blizzard is an American publisher yet they punished the player to appeal to the ever-growing Chinese video game market. Blizzard CEO J. Allen Brack even made an appearance and started the show off with a public apology. This was to both address the tension from fans and to make amends for a bad move. Now with the controversy aside, there were some pretty big announcements made at this year’s convention! That’s enough introductions, keep on reading to find out the future of franchises like WoW, Overwatch, and Diablo.

Diablo IV Finally Got Announced

Breaking News: Diablo IV is a real video game that exists. That’s right folks, its happening! BlizzCon 2019, Blizzard’s annual convention, just wrapped a couple of days ago and most are still feverishly thinking about Diablo IV. Last year after a series of rumors and leaks, most assumed that Diablo IV would be announced then, but they were wrong. Instead Blizzard announced a different Diablo game, Diablo Immortal. Now before you get too excited for this one, keep in mind it will be exclusive to mobile devices. Imagine fans’ surprise when they were awaiting a new sequel, just to find out its “just a mobile game”. This led to the infamous Q&A session where a fan angrily asked if the announcement was meant to be a late April fool’s joke. Blizzard made sure to mention this year that the mobile game was still in development alongside Diablo IV.

Diablo IV is going for a darker, grittier art direction since many were not fans of the more cartoon-y Diablo III art style. This new aesthetic will translate directly to the gameplay as well. Expect a lot more blood and gore as well as darker story themes. It was also noted that this new installment will feature an open-world with player hubs (like Destiny) as well as public events such as challenges and boss fights. However, don’t expect this game to come out any time soon. Despite a new trailer and even some gameplay revealed, Blizzard made it clear that the development team still has a long way to go before the game is finished.

Overwatch 2 is Coming

That’s right, you read that headline right. Overwatch 2 is also a thing that will happen sometime in the future. Unfortunately, this news was revealed through a series of leaks that gave away most of the key information shown at the convention. However, if you didn’t look into the links, then this announcement should still be something special! Overwatch 2 will feature new PvP and PvE game modes not previously seen in the first game. Another highlight mentioned was that there will be four new heroes at launch alongside the current lineup of 30+ playable characters. The sequel will have some form of story mode in which players will level up and develop their heroes for future missions.

While this announcement was great news for Overwatch fans, it was also bad news for Overwatch fans. You see, in order to maintain the first game’s community, the first game will receive all game modes and heroes from the sequel. This means that Overwatch 2 is more like Overwatch 1.5. But fret not, Overwatch is still great! Whether you’ll be continuing the original game or testing out the sequel, it seems that there will be a little something for everyone which is always a good thing.

Final Thoughts

It seems that BlizzCon ended as quickly as it began this year.  The Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV announcements were great for fans of those series and what made it better was that there was actual gameplay revealed as well. One of the problems with E3 this year was that there were only cinematic trailer; no gameplay. Whether you first played Diablo III when it came to Nintendo Switch, or have been playing Overwatch since its 2016 launch there is no denying that BlizzCon 2019 was a success.