With BlizzConline getting close, fans of Blizzard games started speculating about the upcoming news. Among the topics, there are some already announced games such as Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. Many fans believed that these games will get a fair share of time under the spotlight in the upcoming show and some even speculate about possible release date reveals. However, these assumptions have been premature as Activision Blizzard during their latest earnings call confirmed that these games won’t be released in 2021.
Here’s a full quote of Activision’s CFO Dennis Durkin:
“We expect Blizzard’s net bookings to grow, given the momentum in World of Warcraft and the other growth initiatives we have in the business. Our outlook does not include Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2 launching in 2021.”
While Diablo 4’s delay didn’t come as a surprise since the game was officially revealed only last year, the Overwatch community have been hoping that almost 2 years after the initial Overwatch 2 announcement and playable demo showcase would indicate that developers are almost ready for launch. However, the scope of Overwatch 2 is huge and during the lockdown, the development team needed to adjust their schedule.
However, the base gameplay is just the tip of the iceberg for Overwatch 2 as developers pledged to create a complete story experience with a full set of story missions pushing the narrative of Overwatch forward. That means a fully-fledged Overwatch PvE campaign is in the works.
While the delay of both games is a bit sad, we can expect to learn about the development progress during the BlizzConline. Blizzard’s president J. Allen Brack said that the company is making huge leaps forward.
“We’ve successfully passed a major internal milestone in December, and that involved testing many key features of the game with 100s of developers across Blizzard, and so we’re happy with how that game is progressing.”
So what can we expect from BlizzConline if two major Blizzard games are being postponed? Well, there’s always World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and even Starcraft. We can also assume that we’ll be getting some new announcements for yet unannounced projects. having in mind the fact that this year Blizzard is celebrating their 30th anniversary, getting a new surprise release wouldn’t be unexpected, would it?
If you’re interested in learning more about the future of Blizzard games, be sure to tune in to BlizzConline which will be streamed live on February 19-20.
