Blizzard’s president has said the company decided to announce new StarCraft and Diablo games this weekend, despite their releases being years away, to “convey confidence” that they’ll ship on time.
At BlizzCon’s opening ceremony on Saturday, Blizzard announced a new StarCraft open-world shooter and the fifth game in the Diablo series. Unusually for games of this scale, the pair are being announced years ahead of their projected release windows: Diablo is aiming for 2029, and StarCraft won’t be out until 2030 at the earliest.
Speaking to Bloomberg following the announcements, Blizzard boss Johanna Faries said the company decided to make the early announcements “to convey confidence in some of our biggest bets coming forward.”
“We’re a Blizzard that’s going to ship, and ship big, and ship on time, and all hands on deck to set those projects up for success,” she said.
Faries didn’t explicitly discuss the potential of job losses at Blizzard – Microsoft is yet to confirm the remaining 1,600 roles it intends to cut, and Blizzard has largely unaffected by the first wave – but the exec said he wanted BlizzCon to be “a sort of oasis, a moment for real joy” for staff and its fans.
“Preserving that has been my ultimate focus,” Faries said. “The unique special sauce that is Blizzard, both culturally and creatively. And to the extent that we can perform well for Microsoft, I think that should be seen as a mutual win.”
Faries said Xbox CEO Asha Sharma visited Blizzard in March, shortly after she was appointed, and hoped the visit would help the new boss understand Blizzard’s culture.
At BlizzCon 2026, Blizzard also revealed a new World of WarCraft variant, WoW Forever, which will run alongside Classic and the vanilla game.
“What a special moment this is, and a chance to gather around the games, the universes, the bonds that continue to inspire our work, our friendships, and our lives,” Faries said in her address to the BlizzCon audience.
“My hope is that our coming together can remind the world why community like this matters so much, why artistry matters, why creativity matters, and why making and playing games will matter always.”
