A CRT monitor sat on the BlizzCon 2026 preshow set, a small piece of old hardware before Blizzard laid out years of new games. In Anaheim, the company announced an open-world StarCraft shooter, Diablo V and World of Warcraft Forever, a fresh branch of Azeroth’s earliest year. The BlizzCon opening ceremony reached far beyond sequels: Warcraft III gained a campaign, and Heroes of the Storm gained its first new hero in six years. [1]
BlizzCon 2026 Brings StarCraft Back
StarCraft had already appeared on a large convention banner before Blizzard showed its cinematic. PC Gamer’s Tyler Wilde reported that the new game carries the name StarCraft and takes the series into an open-world shooter. Blizzard’s reported target is 2030. The reveal settles the immediate question of what kind of game the studio announced, while leaving a long stretch between the convention trailer and a finished release. [1]
Eurogamer’s Robert Purchese had outlined the rumors before the ceremony: a shooter associated with former Far Cry boss Dan Hay, possibly built around cooperative play resembling Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Nexon also surfaced in the speculation. Those details remain separate from the announcement. PC Gamer’s post-reveal coverage of BlizzCon 2026 establishes the open-world shooter description, but does not confirm those suggested partners or explain how cooperative play would work across the new game. [1, 3]
No price appears in that coverage. Neither does a platform list. For players waiting for a new real-time strategy game (RTS), the shooter reveal leaves that hope unresolved; the reports describe no new StarCraft RTS announcement at the ceremony. Blizzard showed a cinematic, and Wilde’s recap supplies no account of a hands-on StarCraft demo. Warcraft fans, however, received a much closer prospect: a playable return to the beginning of World of Warcraft. [1]
Azeroth Starts Its First Year Again
Blizzard closed the ceremony with World of Warcraft Forever, the project previously discussed as WoW Classic Plus. IGN’s Wesley Yin-Poole reports that the World of Warcraft Classic team is developing it, with a setting in the original game’s first year. Both IGN and PC Gamer report a November 4 release date. Forever opens a new branch of the MMO (massively multiplayer online game), adding stories and locations to that early setting. [1, 2]
Skyborne Elves join the playable races. Blizzard told Wilde that Forever adds three new zones, overhauls existing areas and introduces more than 1,000 quests, with nine new dungeons and two new raids expanding the places groups can explore. The level cap is 60. Wilde describes a world that stays in its first year for now, with room to explore previously unfilled parts of the map and events running parallel to the original story. Future expansions could take different paths, but the report presents that as a possibility rather than an announced schedule. Blizzard also made Forever playable at the convention, according to PC Gamer, bringing the new branch within reach of attendees. [1]
WoW executive producer Holly Longdale described Forever as an opportunity to recover “what the heart is of MMOs,” in comments quoted by PC Gamer, with the new branch opening space for stories outside the original sequence of expansions. A beta starts Thursday, Wilde reports. Meanwhile, Blizzard’s current Warcraft storyline keeps moving: BlizzCon 2026 also brought a named update for Midnight and another glimpse of the expansion that follows it. [1]
Warcraft Moves on Two Fronts
Blizzard named World of Warcraft: Midnight’s Patch 12.2 Eclipse and showed a cinematic and gameplay trailer, according to IGN. The update leads toward The Last Titan, the final chapter of the Worldsoul Saga. Blizzard teased that expansion without supplying many details in the available reports. Forever can hold Azeroth in its early history while Midnight continues the current story, giving the company two distinct Warcraft timelines to develop. [1, 2]
Warcraft III received something more immediate. PC Gamer reports that Blizzard released Warcraft III: Forsaken Kingdom on the ceremony day, together with the free Reforged 3.0 update, marking the strategy game’s first expansion in 23 years. The campaign’s price remains unspecified. Blizzard’s free designation covers the update; the available coverage does not establish that Forsaken Kingdom itself costs nothing, an important distinction for anyone returning to Reforged for the new story. [1]
Hearthstone reaches further into Azeroth’s past with Reign of the Black Empire, which PC Gamer reports is due October 20 and takes place thousands of years earlier. Monk joins the classes. Blizzard also introduced Assemble, a keyword that merges two cards’ text and opens the way to combinations of their effects. Hearthstone gets its first new class in six years, while Warcraft III resumes its campaign history after a much longer gap. Diablo’s next game moves in the opposite direction, beyond a catastrophe that its heroes failed to prevent. [1]
Diablo Begins After the Defeat
Sanctuary has fallen in Diablo V. PC Gamer reports that Blizzard set the sequel roughly a century after Diablo IV, in a world where Diablo has already won and towns no longer offer waiting refuges. The reported release window is spring 2029. Players enter the aftermath of the catastrophe, with the familiar struggle to prevent Diablo’s conquest giving way to a setting under his control. [1]
Diablo IV still has additions coming. Blizzard discussed its next season and an Amazon class for the following year, according to Wilde, although the opening ceremony did not bring another expansion announcement. Deckard Cain also returns for a series anniversary celebration that revisits classic locations. Baal, Mephisto and Diablo feature as well. Will development attention shift toward the sequel? PC Gamer put that question on its reporting agenda; Blizzard’s answer does not appear in the available report. [1]
Blizzard president Johanna Faries also announced an animated Diablo series in development with Netflix. No premiere date appears in the report. Faries teased possibilities for Overwatch and Warcraft on other screens, while the quoted company brief specifically confirms the Diablo project. BlizzCon 2026 consequently put Sanctuary on two distant horizons, a sequel and a television production, as other Blizzard teams brought changes to games people already play. [1]
New Heroes and the Ceremony Replay
Overwatch introduced Doctrine and Grímsvötn, an Icelandic prison map, with a cinematic for Act Three of its year-long story. Roadhog gets a revamp. Sombra moves into the support role. PC Gamer also reports a February 2027 target for the next Overwatch Spotlight, but the coverage gives no detailed schedule for these character changes. Heroes of the Storm, meanwhile, receives Xal’atath, the Harbinger of the Void, as its first new hero in six years. [1]
PC Gamer reports a Monday public test realm (PTR) debut for Xal’atath and a September 28 release. [1]
Blizzard has not confirmed a broader Heroes of the Storm revival. Wilde’s suggestion that the company will assess the reaction before committing further describes what he has heard, rather than a published content roadmap. Beyond the BlizzCon 2026 trailers, Blizzard’s workforce has its own recent milestone: nearly 1,900 workers ratified their first Blizzard union contract, as PerEXP Teamworks reported. [1]
PC Gamer’s BlizzCon 2026 ceremony recap and viewing links provide an embedded player and a YouTube link for watching the show. Eurogamer listed an expected runtime of 75 minutes, with the broadcast kicking off at 10:30 am PT to mark Blizzard’s first fan convention since 2023. The ceremony opened with a franchise montage and an address from Blizzard president Johanna Faries, who framed the weekend gathering as a place to connect and heal. [1, 3]
- ONLINE NEWS Wilde, T. (2026, September 12). BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony recap—what’s next for Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft. PC Gamer. [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS Yin-Poole, W. (2026, September 12). World of Warcraft Forever announced at BlizzCon 2026, The Last Titan teased. IGN. [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS Purchese, R. (2026, September 12). A new StarCraft? Diablo 4 Switch 2? All the BlizzCon 2026 announcements from the opening ceremony as they happen. Eurogamer. [Article Link]
- WEBSITE BlizzCon 2026 opening ceremony: Starcraft returns, Diablo V announced, Warcraft news and more. (n.d.). Xbox Wire. [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS BlizzCon 2026 opening ceremony: Start time, how to watch, and what to expect. (n.d.). GameSpot. [Article Link]
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