In a packed, rowdy BlizzCon main hall, the game developer finally confirmed the rumors: We’re getting a shooter set in the Starcraft universe. The game is titled simply Starcraft.
All we saw was a brief teaser that showed the rise and sudden fall of an elite soldier. Still, Starcraft (the game) is the first major news from Starcraft (the series) in a decade, when Starcraft 2’s Nova Covert Ops campaign pack was released. The announcement of the franchise’s return rocked the enormous main hall at BlizzCon.
I grew up playing the original Starcraft, spending late nights in custom games with friends, so I’m interested to see whether (and how) Blizzard can revitalize the franchise.
The game is planned for a 2030 launch, fully two decades after the release of Starcraft 2.
Diablo 5 announced, alongside Netflix series
In 2029, Sanctuary will finally fall. Players will fight to take it back in Diablo 5.
In a dark and hazy main hall, Blizzard Entertainment showed a short teaser revealing Diablo’s return at the BlizzCon opening ceremony. For the series’ 30th anniversary, Diablo announced plans to drag players deeper into the darkness than they’ve ever seen. Diablo 5 will show us what happens when the Lord of Terror finally takes over the world.
According to Diablo devs, the game will explore the question of what you must become to save a world that has already fallen.
The past two Diablo games spent about a decade in development, so the announcement of the next entry is earlier than expected. We just wrapped the Mephisto storyline and here comes Diablo announcing his (eventual) return.
In the meantime, there’s still more planned for Diablo 4, which released its Lord of Hatred expansion earlier this spring. Blizzard will add the Amazon class — a returning favorite from Diablo 2 — via a class pack next year. It’s not a full expansion, but it gives players the opportunity to explore the Skovos isles, home of the Amazons, as one of their own.
Blizzard CEO Johanna Faries also announced that an animated Diablo series is coming to Netflix and hinted that there may be more planned for other franchises sometime in the future.
World of Warcraft is forever, and Forever comes in November
The rumored “Classic plus” is coming to Blizzard’s flagship MMO. Titled World of Warcraft Forever, the game will funnel new content to players while preserving the feel (and level cap) of vanilla WoW.
WoW Forever will add three new zones, overhaul several existing zones, drop 1,000 new quests into the game alongside nine new dungeons, two new raids and a new Skyborne race.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the beta for WoW Forever opens on Thursday (Sept. 17), and the game is set for a launch in less than two months, on Nov. 4.
Over in contemporary WoW, the latest expansion, Midnight, is entering the next phase of its story. Blizzard showed us a new cinematic that raised the stakes in ways that, as a non-WoW player, I frankly didn’t really follow, but it looked momentous.
We also got a tease for the next expansion, The Last Titan, which will conclude the Worldsoul trilogy of expansions that began with 2024’s The War Within.
Alongside a 3.0 update to Warcraft 3: Reforged, a remaster of the classic real-time strategy game, Blizzard is releasing a new Forsaken Kingdom campaign, launching today.
Overwatch finally reworked Roadhog and Sombra (again)
Blizzard’s hero shooter had its big moment earlier this year, when the game announced 10 new heroes for its 10th anniversary, plus a new, ongoing story that has spanned everything from cinematics to in-game map changes. The game’s BlizzCon announcements weren’t as big as other franchises’, but there were still some surprises tucked away.
We got our first look at Doctrine, a vampire-inspired support hero who will join the roster in season 5 next month. Doctrine is playable this weekend in a hero preview before joining the roster permanently in October.
The game is also adding a new escort map, set in the Icelandic prison that contained Doctrine before Doomfist and his crew of ex-Talon members broke him out.
A new support hero and a new map were expected. What really made me shoot forward in my seat was the announcement that hero reworks are starting to come through — and longtime damage hero Sombra is switching roles and becoming a support hero.
Sombra’s been a tough nut to crack for Overwatch, often overpowered at the highly coordinated pro level, and annoying to both teammates and opponents at the casual level — largely due to her ability to go invisible and quickly teleport across the map. She’s already been through four reworks by my count, and the devs seem to make smaller-but-still-substantial tweaks to her kit every six months or so. As a longtime support player and Sombra-enjoyer (which I will not apologize for), I’m very excited for this change.
Roadhog’s also getting a rework, although he’s staying within the tank role. Like Sombra, he’s a hero who’s been a longtime annoyance for players, due largely to being balanced around a hook ability that can quickly combo down non-tank heroes.
Hearthstone announces next expansion, new class coming next year
Blizzard’s card battler is taking players back 10,000 years in the past with the upcoming Reign of the Black Empire expansion, which adds a new “assemble” keyword allowing players to smush two minions’ text boxes together. It’s also getting a new Journey feature that will be a dedicated home for events, story content and limited-time events.
In March, the game will also add its first new hero in six years: the monk. Blizzard didn’t say much about the new class, but I’m sure we’ll hear more about it over the course of BlizzCon.
New content for Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm is getting a new hero for the first time in six years. Xal’atath from World of Warcraft is joining the roster later this month. The multiplayer online battle arena has been largely in maintenance mode since 2022, though still receiving periodic balance patches. Whether the new hero is the start of more dedicated support for the game likely depends on how much interest the game picks up as a result.
This is a developing story and will be updated as Blizzard releases more information.
Editors’ note: Adam Benjamin’s travel costs for BlizzCon were covered by Blizzard Entertainment. The judgments and opinions of CNET are our own.
Read the full article here