Blizzcon is tomorrow as I write this.

The first in-person Blizzcon since 2019, for me personally the first Blizzcon I haven’t gone to since 2011, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff that is likely to happen there this weekend. I have longer-form opinions on a lot of these topics, and I’ll get on it in the coming days, but for now, let’s do the traditional prediction post!

World of Warcraft – Modern

The current game is due for the odd-year expansion unveiling at Blizzcon that used to happen pre-pandemic like clockwork. With 10.2 launching for Dragonflight next week and it likely being the final patch of Dragonflight (at least in the major, story-beats column), I’d expect to see the content coming next week to start pivoting us towards the new content. Well, in the way WoW does at least, which is not very much short of maybe a cheeky reference until the pre-patch comes out next year. Q4 2024 seems a likely release date, and I expect a part of the first-up “What’s Next” panel is going to be the WoW team explaining how they plan to pad the next year in-game with 10.2 and a likely rehash of Dragonflight in a Season 4 similar to what we saw back in Shadowlands.

Will it be enough? Well, probably, yeah. It’s not likely to bring back exiled players or extend the game’s reach that much, but modern WoW has a passionate and invested fanbase that allows the game to still maintain even after the last several years. Dragonflight has also been a good-enough modern WoW expansion in that it cast away some of the worst parts of the past few years of WoW but maintains enough of the structure of those years that people did like in a way that makes an overall better product, and if what comes next does anything close to that, WoW can maintain a big-enough playerbase to be a worthwhile investment for Blizzard as a business.

In terms of content? Well, Blizzard’s thematic story announcements never really matter because what does matter is the content and gameplay for WoW, so I expect a lot of fluff (the “leaks” and rumors point to some Titan/Dwarf type stuff that will likely take place in some exposed part of old Azeroth), but there will likely be at least a hint of gameplay content to come. My quick bets? They’ve been rebranding dragonriding as “dynamic flight” in discussions and that screams to me that we’ll be seeing it day 1 yet again in some slightly tweaked form, the Mythic Plus seasonal dungeon rotation will continue, and I think that we’ll see some talk about expansion of the talent system with a new level 80 cap that will likely involve an old-school tree deepening in-line with the new talent format. My hopes are that we see old Azeroth leveraged more in content with some way to experience scaled versions of old dungeons and raids even, and I hope they figure out some way to keep the game engaging for the gap between seasons without that content feeling too tacked on.

World of Warcraft – Classic

Cataclysm Classic is two different things to me – it both kind of feels inevitable from the perspective of keeping the content train rolling for those in the Classic ecosystem who move expansion to expansion as time goes on, but also kind of like an albatross around the neck of Classic. Cataclysm is the single most effective point in the game’s history that people can fingerwag at as being where WoW got “bad” – big old world changes, gameplay paradigm locked in fully on raiding and dungeons with a bit of world content in some major patches, and the general lack of the world as a character in the game in favor of a more locked-in version of storytelling that, well, Blizzard hasn’t done quite so well over the years.

At the same time, I think this – revisiting Cataclysm without losing older versions of the game takes the edge off a bit, I think from the standpoint of cultural preservation that having Cataclysm exist in a playable form is ideal, and I think that there is an interesting challenge to chew on with Cataclysm – without the pressure of being the version of WoW that is exclusively playable, is it actually as bad as people think? As the internet’s foremost Cataclysm Defender ™, I think people might find genuine surprise in how it feels to play Cataclysm again, that aspects of it from the gameplay standpoint were ahead of their time in a positive way.

But I’m also betting on some other thing for Classic too. Hardcore has been a huge success in terms of both hype and visible player counts, and I think that opens the dam to ideas that add slight tweaks or modifiers to Classic to make it, in effect, almost a new game. I’ve grappled with why I haven’t been that interested in Classic, and it hit me when the version that finally got reasonable playtime from me was Hardcore – I like the novelty. While I’ve scoffed at the idea of Classic Plus in the past (and often it was used by people as a cudgel against the modern game more than as a genuinely good idea in its own right) I think the time is ripe for it now. I haven’t played Wrath Classic and even though Cataclysm is high up my favorite expansions list (the Cataclysm Defender thing is not just a gimmick or recurring joke!), I wouldn’t play it in Classic either. I would be curious to see what new forms of gameplay could be expressed fully within the framework of the game as it existed as those prior points in time, though. Whether that is a minor ruleset modifier like Hardcore or genuine new content designed and made to be played in the older eras of the game, I think there’s a lot of room to create interesting tweaks to Classic and to entertain players of all sorts by mixing it up here and there.

My actual predictions? Cataclysm I think still happens, and I think we get at least one other form of Classic “Plus” – whether a minor one like pushing Hardcore TBC era servers or something actually brand-new in the framework of Classic, I’m not sure, although I’d gamble on minor ruleset changes for now over big sweeping new pieces of content.

Diablo IV

I really enjoyed Diablo IV at launch. It isn’t, to my mind, quite the experience that I mentally associate with Diablo, but it is a fundamentally solid-enough MMO-ARPG and that is a good thing to be in 2023. To summarize a post I’ve been bouncing around for literally months, I think my thing with Diablo IV is that it shows the fingerprint of the mostly-MMO experience set at Blizzard these days and how the design and content paradigm of an MMO kind of gets in the way of what Diablo has traditionally been. In many ways in both versions of that game, this was also a thing for me in Diablo III, so I’m not particularly surprised, and the seasonal model has not really welcomed me, which isn’t a surprise given I also never played ladder in Diablo II when I was at my peak Diablo obsession and I played maybe one seasonal character in Diablo III.

I expect that we get announcements of the next season theme and ideas, and an expansion to boot. There’s a body of hints about where a possible expansion could go and a lot of different classes from the Diablo franchise that could be brought in for an expansion, so it feels pretty inevitable and the game has been out for long enough now that an expansion announcement, a year or even two in advance, would be welcome.

Hearthstone

I haven’t really kept up with Hearthstone, but I think a new expansion cycle is a safe bet, assuming they try to get back to the pacing they once had. More rulesets that include older sets and more ways to play the game solo against the system in different ways could be very cool, as some of those modes proved quite popular. I really can’t say much more about Hearthstone, because the extent of my current knowledge about it is that it still exists and retains some measure of popularity even as the original team that gave it life has largely moved on.

Starcraft (lol)

I really wish they did something more with Starcraft. While WoW is the game that took me into Blizzard fandom completely, Starcraft was my first Blizzard title and I have a pretty deep nostalgia for it. I expect nothing, but I just wanted to say that, I guess!

Heroes of the Storm (more lol)

This game is capital-D Dead. Well, it exists, and people do still play it – it even had a fairly recent patch pushed to the PTR! However, unless the Microsoft acquisition put this game back on the radar (Master Chief for HotS?!), I think this game is going to be balance tweaked and patched until it actually dies.

Overwatch 2

Eh, I dunno on this one. Overwatch 2 has felt, from the outside, like a flop. Blizzard put it on Steam and the major headline from that was that it was review-bombed to hell (literally at points the worst-reviewed game on Steam). The promised PvE story mode was cancelled and it prompted the fury of one-thousand suns (some of which is encapsulated in those Steam reviews). The change to 5v5 hasn’t meaningfully shaken-up the game for the average player, and while people weren’t particularly big fans of loot boxes, the battle pass model and how it gates content has been even more poorly received. In general, while I know there is still a core that enjoys Overwatch, it seems like the game has lost a lot of the luster it once had and it seems from the business side that WoW is the breadwinner of Blizzard once again. What a crazy 3 year span it was when that wasn’t the case!

I expect the OW announcements to pay lip service to the community but not much more – maybe some round two attempt at a PvE story, maybe an alleviation of the battle pass issues that will let more people access the gated content or a cycling of older rewards back in to reduce dependence on FOMO, maybe the return of a 6v6 mode, but ultimately I’m just guessing because this game seems to be off the rails in some really wild ways that I never expected given that the last in-person Blizzcon prior to this one was a lot of hype for Overwatch 2.

Unnamed Survival Game

Giving this project a name, showing some gameplay footage, almost literally anything would be a slam dunk way to get some interest drummed-up. I don’t expect more than that, but hey – sometimes a taste is all you need.

Others

Diablo Immortal still lives (in line with its name) and Diablo IV coming out took a lot of the heat off of it, so hey, maybe they share some content plans or talk it up a little bit. Warcraft Rumble launches tomorrow, so I expect to see some hype for it. A Phil Spencer appearance to solidify the Microsoft buyout would be cool (and it would be wild if he didn’t show up, given that he was at the competing MMO FFXIV’s Fan Fest just a few short months ago). The longshot Microsoft idea I would put forward is some more talk about how Blizzard properties could be integrated with Game Pass, a thing they’ve already started on given the announcement that Diablo IV will be on the service. I expect Chris Metzen to be the mouthpiece of a substantial chunk of the WoW announcement for the modern game, given that this will be the first expansion since his return to Blizzard that he’s been hands-on with and that was also a big part of his pitch when his full return was announced a few months back. A carnival game booth where you could throw eggs at Bobby Kotick would be cool…but it won’t happen (sad face).

Overall, I expect this Blizzcon to be a little bit weird. It did not sell out, and a lot of work seems to be getting put into making it more about the announcements and panels than gameplay demos, with far fewer gameplay demo areas on the show floor (and I think that’s good, actually, given that pre-Blizzcon crunch to make demos was a big thing for ages with the old format of Blizzcon), so I expect the mood to be a bit strange. Already, the Blizzcon attendee groups I’m in from years past have a weird mix of excitement and melancholy, a sort of bizarre mixing of the old and familiar with the new realities of the world we’re in – first post-pandemic Blizzcon, first post-lawsuit Blizzcon, first post-buyout Blizzcon – and all of these changes come along with the ways the world of gaming has drastically shifted out from under Blizzard’s feet in the years since the last in person event. In many ways, Blizzard was still upheld as a paragon of gaming at the last Blizzcon, and they are…well, certainly not that in a lot more people’s eyes now. In some ways, I expect this Blizzcon to start a new era of Blizzard, owned by Microsoft, after the revelations of the past few years, and with the opportunity to set themselves on a better path and sell a new vision of how they proceed forward.

Will they take it? Eh…I’m skeptical.

Blizzard has always marched to the beat of their own drum, when that has been good (a lot of their early history) and less so (a lot of their recent history). While their recent titles do sometimes reflect a measure of introspection and community outreach, they still often fumble, and stepping outside of the issues with their games, they have a long way to go towards restoring the trust of a big chunk of the community that was disenchanted with how they have handled the issues of sexual harassment and labor unionization within their walls. I don’t believe that Blizzcon is the setting where they will do anything about it, especially given that the only prior history we have with that at Blizzcon is how 2019 had them tepidly address the Blitzchung issue in the opening ceremony. If they even decide to tackle the harassment issues at all, I expect it to be, at best, equally tepid and uninspired.

For some people, the games being good will go a long way, and it might even go pretty far for the people that the lawsuit issues were a dealbreaker for. However, I think that we’ll be waiting a while for Blizzard to get back to their golden age standard, if they ever even do. The new leadership seems disinclined towards change of a meaningful fashion, ownership changing to laissez-faire Microsoft is unlikely to majorly shift the culture, and while being less trod upon to deliver games that hit absurd profit metrics is hopefully likely to lead Blizzard products to better places, it is no guarantee that Blizzard will be delivering all bangers.

My foundational hope for this Blizzcon? Solid, back to basics gameplay focus from Blizzard. WoW that makes the world a character and better integrates the elements of gameplay with the world such that story is no longer this absurd and often-bad side element that doesn’t really integrate with the game. Diablo that focuses in more on the ARPG gameplay elements with more freeform and choice gameplay elements that reward substantial amounts of loot and interesting build choices. Starcraft…anything, please? An Overwatch that meets the promises made and delivers a better gameplay experience to pull in the disaffected players. There’s a lot that Blizzard can do to impress, and I suspect they’ll do some of it, but if you’re waiting for the new hope of a full set of substantive changes, well…maybe don’t hold your breath.