The weekend is perfect for video games, particularly ones that aren’t announced yet but you’re pretty sure they’ll be playable in some form.
I’m in town for Blizzcon this year, which is shaping up to be all sorts of fascinating already. The last year for Blizzard was always going to make Blizzcon 2019 interesting, but when you add the spectre of how fans reacted to Diablo Immortal, moves to cut other projects to double down on Diablo 4 and more Overwatch, and then the chaos of the last few weeks, this year’s convention might be the most important in the company’s history.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/10/after-a-terrible-2019-blizzard-is-going-all-in-at-blizzcon/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/tnfe1g0xn6xgfblvmdrz.jpg” title=”After A Terrible 2019, Blizzard Is Going All-In At BlizzCon” excerpt=”The plan was always to wait for BlizzCon. In November of 2018, after a PR blow-up surrounding the ill-advised announcement of the mobile game Diablo Immortal, Blizzard’s staff knew that they just needed to make it through the next year without incident. If they could, they’d be able to win fans back with a suite of killer announcements.”]
There’s a pretty good sense of what’s coming already, although what exactly will be playable on the show floor and what won’t is another matter entirely. Warcraft 3: Reforged and the next World of Warcraft expansion seem a given. Overwatch 2, or whatever that ends up being called, is being talked about around town as a certainty as well.
I’m still keen to see what’s happening to Diablo Immortal, the mobile meme that has gone completely under the radar in the last few weeks. Most of the development work has been done. NetEase, the Chinese partner and developer working on Immortal with Blizzard, said their hand in the game’s creation was done in February. A much bigger vertical slice should be playable on the Blizzcon show floor — although just as interesting will be whether the game gets mentioned during the opening keynote, and if so, how that’s handled.
Outside of that, I’ve been mucking around with the horror game observer on the Switch. The controls are incredibly frustrating, so much so that I’ll probably pick up the game on PC just to deal with something a little easier to handle. Always loved the vibe, though.
What are you playing this weekend?
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