BlizzCon 2026: Diablo 5, StarCraft and WoW Forever

BlizzCon Came Back Swinging After Three Years Away

BlizzCon returned to the Anaheim Convention Center on September 12 after a three-year hiatus, and Blizzard clearly decided that if you are going to come back, you come back loud. The opening ceremony announced two games that are years out, one expansion that is weeks out, and a new campaign for a game that has not had one in more than two decades.

• Diablo V: spring 2029, set in a Sanctuary where Diablo has already won
• StarCraft open-world shooter: spring 2030, led by former Far Cry lead Dan Hay
• World of Warcraft: Forever: November 4, 2026, with beta on September 17 — three zones, 1,000+ quests, nine dungeons, two raids and the new Skyborne race
• Warcraft III Reforged: the Forsaken Kingdom campaign is available now, the first new storyline in over 23 years

Why Announce Games That Are Three Years Out?

Because confidence is a product too. Blizzard told VGC that revealing Diablo V and the StarCraft shooter this far ahead was deliberate — a way to show the studio has a roadmap rather than leaving fans to guess. It is an unusual move in an industry that has spent years learning to announce things closer to release, and it is a bet that goodwill now is worth more than mystery later.

The StarCraft news is the one that will echo longest. Fans have spent years speculating about what Blizzard was building in that universe, and the answer is not another real-time strategy game: it is a story-driven open-world shooter, due spring 2030, with Dan Hay — previously the lead on Far Cry — steering it. Whether you wanted another RTS or not, "the Far Cry guy makes a StarCraft shooter" is a pitch that gets your attention.

Diablo V takes the opposite tack from most sequel announcements. Rather than promising a bigger version of the last game, Blizzard framed it around a premise: the war is over, Diablo won, and the story is about what you have to become to survive a world that already lost. That is a genuinely interesting place to start an action RPG, and 2029 gives them room to build it.

What Can You Actually Play Soon?

Plenty, which is the part that keeps a three-year roadmap from feeling like vapor.

World of Warcraft: Forever arrives November 4 with beta access opening September 17. Three new zones, over 1,000 quests, nine dungeons, two raids and the Skyborne playable race is a substantial package, and the mid-expansion Eclipse update (patch 12.2) is queued behind it. The next expansion, The Last Titan, gets details in early 2027.

Diablo IV is not being quietly retired either. Season of Hell's Legacy starts September 15, the same day the game lands on Nintendo Switch with cross-platform features, and the Amazon class arrives in the first half of 2027.

Warcraft III Reforged got the surprise of the show: a brand-new campaign called Forsaken Kingdom, playable immediately, alongside a 3.0 update with graphics improvements and a revamped World Editor. A new Warcraft III storyline after 23 years is the kind of thing you announce and let the room react.

Elsewhere: Overwatch Season 5 brings a new support hero named Doctrine, Sombra and Roadhog reworks and the Watchpoint: Grimsvotn map, with the next Overwatch Spotlight in February 2027. Hearthstone is adding the Monk class in 2027 — its first new class in more than six years — alongside the Reign of the Black Empire expansion and a new Battlegrounds minion type. Heroes of the Storm gets Xal'atath on September 28. And a Netflix Diablo series is in development.

If you are catching up on the release calendar, our pieces on Valheim 1.0 reaching PS5 and Switch 2 and the Ocarina of Time remake dated for November 5 cover the rest of the autumn. Full gaming coverage lives here.

Sources: VGC — September 12, 2026; GamesRadar — September 12, 2026; VGC on the early reveals — September 13, 2026.