Blizzard uncharacteristically announced two games at the weekend with release dates surprisingly far away. One was Diablo 5, which Blizzard plans to release in spring 2029, and the other was the much-rumoured StarCraft open-world shooter, releasing 2030.
The dates caused commotion. There was more than a decade between the releases of Diablos 2 and 3, but there will be only six years between 4 and 5 (which has caused concern about whether there will be any more Diablo 4 expansions). And StarCraft in 2030? I can’t think of any studio dating games further away than 2028, let alone Blizzard, which famously has operated with a ‘done when it’s done’ kind of approach, keeping dates obscured to the last moment.
It’s a way of doing things that, for Blizzard, is unprecedented, and it begs the question of why do it at all. “We want to convey confidence in some of our biggest bets coming forward,” answered Blizzard president Johanna Faries, speaking to Bloomberg in an interview. “We’re a Blizzard that’s going to ship, and ship big, and ship on time, and all hands on deck to set those projects up for success.”
One explanation for the change of approach could come from looming Xbox layoffs. Microsoft cut 1600 people from the Xbox division earlier this year but still has 1600 more cuts to make between now and next summer. Does shouting about these big projects – Blizzard also announced the ambitious World of Warcraft: Forever, to launch in November – underline the company’s importance and in some way shield it from Microsoft’s scissors?
Faries wouldn’t comment on this directly, Bloomberg said, but reportedly acknowledged the uncertainty. “I’m completely focused on creating as healthy a Blizzard as possible,” she said. Preserving the company’s culture and “unique special sauce” is Faries’ “ultimate focus”, apparently. “And to the extent that we can perform well for Microsoft, I think that should be seen as a mutual win,” she said.
Not a lot was revealed about the StarCraft shooter at the weekend. Former Ubisoft Far Cry person Dan Hay came on stage to reveal it – who was reported to be working on the game in 2024 – and told us the game would be open-world and tonally on the serious side. A CGI trailer showed Terran mech-pilot recruits training and going to war, then dying in zerg stampedes, before their mech suits were returned and cleaned of pulped body-sludge for the next round of recruits to occupy. The message was their lives didn’t matter and chances of survival were slim – will you fare better?
A shooter is a notable departure for StarCraft, which is known as an RTS series, though there was a failed attempt to make a StarCraft Ghost stealth-like shooter many years ago. Faries called the new StarCraft a “broadening” of the series and labelled it “a StarCraft for the modern, next generation of players without departing from our RTS roots”, which is a curious thing to say – does that suggest it has RTS elements to it? “We’ll have more to say about that, you know, over the years here,” Faries added. The intention of revealing it so early was “starting a new conversation around it”.
Besides Diablo 5, the StarCraft shooter, and World of Warcraft Forever, Blizzard also announced a Diablo Netflix animated series – alongside broader plans to do similar with many of its brands – a brand new Warcraft 3 campaign decades after the game’s release, a new Overwatch hero (and tease of what to expect in next year’s big expansion-like release), a new Diablo 4 class, and outlined the next big patch for World of Warcraft’s Midnight era. It was a big show, and you can catch up with our blow-by-blow account of the BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony elsewhere on the site.
