Blizzcon 2019: November 1st and 2nd

Blizzard has just announced the dates of this year's Blizzcon, and it'll be the first two days of November.

So, what do we expect, announcement-wise? Let's go franchise by franchise. Obviously, they could start a new one - Overwatch was a big expansion of their brand (and weirdly inspired a whole genre of animated porn, which... congrats? Maybe?) But Blizzard is fairly conservative with its IPs, and so I'm going to assume we'll see updates by existing franchises.

Warcraft:

This will be the main event - it's an odd-numbered year, meaning that we're due to get the announcement of a new WoW expansion to be released about a year later. By then 8.2 will have been out for a while, and we'll either be in the middle of 8.3 or it'll be coming soon. I think it's hard to judge BFA given how overwhelmingly popular (and in this player's opinion, superlative) Legion was, but it's pretty clear that WoW is holding to its pattern of kind of alternating between really good expansions and not so good ones. If that pattern holds, the next expansion will join the ranks of Wrath, Mists, and Legion. Where it stands among those (and again, if it does fit that pattern) remains to be seen, and its announcement is not going to tell us that. Legion was announced at Gamescom to a stereotypically dispassionate German crowd, and enthusiasm was probably tempered by the real disappointment of Warlords of Draenor, but wound up being what I think a lot of people consider WoW's best expansion.

An expansion announcement is coming - the question is what we think it will be about - I'm crossing fingers for a Death/Shadowlands expansion, but we'll see. Could be anything from Dragon Isles to a risen Black Empire.

Outside of WoW, if WCIII Reforged isn't out yet, we'll probably get updates on that, and possibly hear about similar treatments to the earlier games.

Overwatch:

Overwatch is one of the games they have that has pretty regular updates, so I'd expect more heroes and maps and events, probably with a new animated short. We'll also probably get more of the eSports angle with Overwatch League (to be honest, I'm about as interested in eSports as I am in regular sports, which is not very much.)

Heroes of the Storm:

While it's slowed down, HotS will, like Overwatch, probably get some continuing updates. New heroes, new map, maybe.

Hearthstone:

Again, a game that gets regular updates, so I'd expect a new expansion announcement.

Starcraft:

Big shrug here. I think this franchise, despite being one of its most historically popular, is kind of in stasis. The story was finished pretty emphatically in Starcraft II, or at least seems that way. I really don't follow this one, so apologies if I've forgotten something.

Diablo:

Ok, here's the interesting one: I've never seen such a negative reaction to a game announcement as Diablo Immortal, the anger over it seeming to shock the developers who announced it. I get that it wasn't the game people wanted, but it's especially bizarre that, according to Kotaku, Blizzard has actually been working on a Diablo IV, yet did not announce it.

Announcing that it's in development - even if it's a super-early stage - would probably be a good move and give players something to look forward to. I think Blizzard underestimated how skeptical old-school gamers are of the microtransaction-fueled mobile gaming market. Anyway, if there is to be a new main-series Diablo game, giving players something to look forward to would probably be good. Hell, I'm still feeling the high of hearing Elder Scrolls VI announced and I don't think we've gotten a single detail about that game in over a year.