Blizzard names three dates for upcoming Warcraft unveilings. The ninth WoW add-on will be unveiled on April 19.
Blizzard has been developing Warcraft games for almost 28 years now and so far there is no end in sight. Now the company is launching a new Warcraft offensive that should keep fans quite busy this spring. New expansions to both the card game Hearthstone and the veteran MMO World of Warcraft are to be unveiled soon.
The third game in the bunch is a still unknown mobile game, which according to its own statements will be “the first game in the Warcraft universe designed for mobile devices”. Whether it will be better received by fans than Diablo Immortal was back then remains to be seen.
The remaster of the time-honoured real-time strategy game Warcraft 3 also had some weaknesses, but there the fans are now taking the reins into their own hands:
Suit against Activision Blizzard: Even though it has been a while, it should not go unmentioned that a sexual discrimination lawsuit against Activision Blizzard is currently underway. We don’t know whether the announced projects were created under similar working conditions as those found in the statement of claim.
Dates for the big announcements
Between March and May 2022, there is to be a major unveiling every month. First up is the popular digital card game Hearthstone, also set in the Warcraft world. This will be followed by WoW and the as yet unnamed mobile game.
Hearthstone
On 15 March, Blizzard plans to unveil the first of three expansions of the year to Hearthstone. A little later, the other plans for 2022 are also to be pre-sketched, including the usual adjustments to the core set.
No word yet on where this unveiling will take place, but typically they appear as videos on YouTube, Twitter and the Battle.net launcher.
World of Warcraft
It was only in February that the last major patch for the current expansion Shadowlands went live, and already the next one is just around the corner. On 19 April, the ninth World of Warcraft add-on will be unveiled.
However, it will be a while before you can start playing, because up to now there has usually been about a year between the announcement and the actual release.
First Warcraft game for mobile
Not only does it rhyme, but it’s also the third and final big announcement Blizzard has up its sleeve for Warcraft fans this spring. Here, the industry giant only gives May as the date for further information.
The project was first hinted at during an investor conference and official confirmation came shortly afterwards:
According to an employee, he has been working on the game since he started at Blizzard, which suggests a development time of about three years.
We’ve updated the description of our latest environment art job opening. We are indeed working on a Warcraft Mobile game. I’ve actually been working on this game for most of my time at Blizzard and it really is an amazing team!https://t.co/dfVb0qXVXX
– 🆑ayton💙 (@Lungjaw) February 22, 2021
Has Blizzard actually learned anything?
But there is another exciting aspect to the future of Blizzard: How will the internal culture change after the allegations of systematic discrimination and sexual harassment of women?
Has Blizzard learned anything?
The video game industry frequently stumbles over abuses in the workplace, be it exaggerated crunch phases that repeatedly put extreme mental and physical strain on employees through ex- or implicit calls for piecework – or the creation of a misogynistic working climate.
