Blizzcon has arrived and passed with a few big announcements that has had people both speculating and being rather confused, nonetheless I will do my best to describe what was given to us.
Before all of that though Blizzard attempted to apologise for the whole China incident by addressing the matter head on at the start. It didn’t really feel like a proper apology though as the player who was affected by this is still banned so perhaps this was just a PR move. Anyway regardless of this they first showed us Diablo 4 which was certainly a nice surprise. I’m only a rather recent convert to the Diablo series so seeing a new game has me quite excited but we shall see if it lives up to the hype.
Next up was a new World of Warcraft expansion, Shadowlands. I don’t play WoW so I don’t know much about the game but it is apparently set in Warcraft universe’s version of the afterlife which is certainly an interesting move. Next up we were shown a new card set for Hearthstone called ‘Descent of Dragons’ which will feature a new bunch of dragon themed cards so I suppose if you’re into that then you will be excited.
Finally we of course got the announcement of Overwatch 2. It’s a weird game however as it’s more like a PvE expansion to the original Overwatch rather than a brand new game. The reason for this is that how this will work is the base game of Overwatch will be updated with a new upgraded engine, graphics and gameplay features and will also get all the new heroes and maps that this new game is said to have. The only thing you actually get if you pay is a single player story mode and ‘hero missions’ which all from what I can currently see just feature bots being dropped onto multiplayer maps. I’m not too sure about it all but I do like single player content and I felt that was what Overwatch’s biggest problem was. If it ends up being priced just like an expansion should be then I will get it but if it’s full price then you can count me out.
Overall a bunch of big announcements this year and it has gone so much better than last year’s event. The china controversy still looms overhead for the company however so who knows if this will be a good time for the company or not, it might just end up being a balancing act in the end. That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.