Blizzard’s annual celebration of all things Blizzard has wrapped up at the Anaheim convention center, with announcements abound as to the kind of software we can expect to see from them in the near or maybe far future, what exactly does that entail? Let’s take a look.
First is Blizzard Smash Brothers Defense of the Ancients Mutiplayer Online Battle Arena Action Real Time Strategy…. Thing, but let’s just call it “Heroes of the Storm” to keep things simple. Featuring characters from all your favorite Blizzard franchises such as Starcraft and Warcraft and……. That’s about it. Well hey, it’s not like Blizzard has only turned out three IPs of note in their entire existence, we might see Lost Vikings making an appearance in Heroes, you remember them? They were those World of Warcraft NPCs. Anyway, HotS promises that you can “build” and ‘customize” your own characters, what this means exactly has yet to be seen, but check out this rad trailer with Nova’s shit eating grin:
WARCRAFT THE MOVIE, yes, finally, remember that? Remember when that was supposed to be a thing? Well it’s happening, and we can expect to see a 2015 release. Director Duncan Jones (Source Code) has explained the film stars both an Orc and a Human, wanting to explore “both sides” of the ongoing Alliance/Horde conflict that started with…. Warcraft Orcs and Humans. The movie does promise to be an origin story of sorts, with Industrial Light & Magic revealed to be the film’s special effects powerhouse, you may know them from more low-key works as “Star Wars.” Hey, speaking of Warcraft Orcs and Humans, maybe you’re one of those newbies that came in late to the World of Warcraft MMO, you don’t like going to the movies, and you never bothered to explore any of the RTS games that preceded it. Well good news! Because….
Burning Crusade 2 is on the horizon. I mean, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor is on the horizon. The latest expansion in the franchise boosts the level cap to 100, finally releases guild housing, promises new skins for the core 8 races as well as Blood Elves and Draenei, allows one of your characters to automatically boost to level 90, and introduces NPCs that will explore dungeons for you and bring you back gear because why ever play a video game yourself? Warlords of Draenor also takes you back to a time in Outland before it was Outland, introducing some time travel (will Caverns of Time finally get some love?) that is supposed to allow you to fully explore the game’s lore from Warcraft 1 up to Frozen Throne. Don’t expect WoW to go free to play anytime soon though, Blizzard put the kibosh on that by telling players “We would have to rework the game pretty significantly in order to make it free-to-play.” Or to put it simply: We’re not doing it as long as we can still take this cow to market.
Diablo 3 is also getting an expansion. Not DLC, an honest to goodness expansion. Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls promises a new class who will fight new monsters and plunder new environments. It will also introduce a brand new “Adventure Mode” for those players that want to break free of linear bounds, set out and explore. You may also test your mettle in “Rifts” that randomize dungeons, monsters and boss encounters. The goal seems to be to open up Diablo so it feels a bit more “open world.”
Speaking of open world, how would you like to open up your cellphones to Hearthstone? (Not a great segue, I know). Blizzard announced their digital trading card game will be coming to Android and iOS, while the PC/Mac beta will be open to the public in December, so if you really want to get your mitts on the game early keep a lookout on battlenet. Heck, do the same for all the games (and one movie) in this wrap up, it’s not like BlizzCon happens every day… Only every year.
