Everything Revealed at BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony

I've always been a sucker for watching live streams of gaming conventions. It is always exciting to see what gets announced as it happens, especially if you don't have the chance to actually attend in person. I watched E3 avidly when I was in high school, and that continued into college when I first bought a virtual ticket for BlizzCon 2010.

World of Warcraft has always been near and dear to my heart. While I've never had the opportunity to actually go to BlizzCon, I have practically made it a tradition to watch all the panels as they go live. Before I start getting overly nostalgic, let's shift focus back to what was revealed today at the opening ceremony.

Heroes of the Storm Returns

Heroes of the Storm has been dormant for some time, but now we finally have new content coming. Xal'atah is being added as a hero, and she will make her debut later this month. She will be available on PTR this Monday, and she will be playable at BlizzCon. They also implied that there will be another hero added later on.

Diablo Coming to Netflix

After the past half-decade, it would appear that the curse of bad video game adaptations has finally been broken. Blizzard is partnering with Netflix to release an animated Diablo series.

They also implied that there will be Overwatch and Warcraft series on Netflix as well in the future. No other details were given, but it is still pretty exciting nonetheless.

StarCraft is Back... Kind of

There had been rumors of another StarCraft game in development. Today, Blizzard announced that they are making an open-world StarCraft shooter. Blizzard showed off an amazing (and horrifically macabre) cinematic. While the premise sounds amazing, we are in for a long wait, as the game is not coming out until 2030 (yes, you read that right).

Honestly, I wish they hadn't announced it when they did. Four years is a long time, and there is a non-zero chance that this new game will suffer the same fate as StarCraft: Ghost.

Overwatch

Following the StarCraft news, Blizzard showed off an animated short of Doomfist and revealed a new hero called Doctrine. This stylish-looking vampire comes out next month in Season 5. He will also be available to play at BlizzCon this weekend. Several heroes are also getting reworks.

There will be another hero later this year, but they aren't ready to reveal any other details yet. They briefly discussed Questwatch, a special TTRPG adventure at BlizzCon tomorrow that is written by the Overwatch narrative team and Critical Role's legendary DM Matthew Mercer.

Diablo 4 (and Beyond)

After showing a video talking about 30 years of Diablo, Blizzard revealed Season of Hell's Legacy for Diablo 4.

Deckard Cain's soul returns to Sanctuary to fight some of the most notorious foes players have ever faced, including all three Prime Evils. The new season begins on September 15th. All of Diablo 4 is coming to Switch 2 on September 15th as well.

On top of that, the Amazon class will be added to Diablo 4 during the first half of 2027. Additional details about this class will be revealed at the Diablo panel tomorrow.

But that's not all. Before they moved on, Blizzard revealed Diablo V. Coming out in spring 2029, Diablo V will be all about Diablo himself. Only this time, Diablo has won and has conquered Sanctuary. So rather than stopping him as you did in Diablo 2 and 3, you are now tasked with trying to take Sanctuary back from the infamous Lord of Terror.

Hearthstone

For this next segment, the Reign of the Black Empire expansion was revealed. It includes a new keyword called Assemble. This keyword allows you to merge cards and combine their effects. This expansion will consist of 250 new cards and comes out on October 20th. Aberrations are being added to Hearthstone Battlegrounds.

Not only that, but the Journal is being overhauled to include narrative. Lots of changes are coming, including 2v2 Tavern Brawls. At the end, they showed a brief trailer for the Monk class, which will come out in March 2027.

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft capped off the opening ceremony with some exciting new information. They revealed Eclipse, the next major content patch for World of Warcraft (also known as patch 12.2). They showed off a trailer of Xal'atah at the gate to Azeroth's World Soul and a glimpse into what her plans for Azeroth are.

They briefly teased that new information will be revealed at the World of Warcraft panels this weekend, especially details on the new Remix event. Few details were given about The Last Titan, as it is built on some significant story spoilers for the final content patch of Midnight. That said, they did show off a brief trailer for the third and final installment of the World Soul Saga, which is expected to release later in 2027.

But that's not all. On top of all the World of Warcraft news, they revealed Warcraft III: Forsaken Kingdom, a new campaign for Warcraft III. This is the first expansion for Warcraft III in over 20 years and is a prequel campaign about the Forsaken. Even more exciting, it has been shadow-dropped and is available right now (yes, you read that right).

But that's not all. At the end of the opening ceremony, Blizzard showed off their vision of Classic+. This new version of World of Warcraft is called World of Warcraft: Forever.

This is a slower-paced version of WoW that is more about the journey than the destination. The level cap will stay at 60, and the world will be expanded significantly. Some of the changes include zones like Mount Hyjal, playable undead paladins, and so much more.

World of Warcraft: Forever launches on November 4th, and there will be a beta coming up soon. That's all that was revealed today, and there is plenty of exciting info that came out today.