BlizzCon 2023: Diablo 4 expansion, WoW Cataclysm Classic, and more
Blizzard kicked off the first BlizzCon in several years with a stream of announcements, including an Overwatch 2 hero, Diablo 4 expansion release window, and some World of Warcraft news. It’s the first BlizzCon since Microsoft completed its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and while Xbox head Phil Spencer showed up on stage, he didn’t give any more insight into when we’ll see Activision Blizzard games on Game Pass – just like he said he wouldn’t before.
ActiBlizz has a lot in store for 2024, including a new game mode and two new Overwatch 2 heroes, another classic World of Warcraft campaign, and, at the end of the year, the first Diablo 4 expansion – Vessel of Hatred.
Noticeable by its absence was Starcraft, which got only a brief mention from Spencer and absolutely nothing else.
New World of Warcraft expansions
Blizzard is working on a pretty big plan for WoW, so big that it includes three whole expansions. It's called the Worldsoul Saga, and the first MMO expansion - set for release in fall 2024 - is The War Within. The War Within will take players deep underground, add at least two new regions, introduce more customization options, and include new endgame features for experienced players to enjoy.
World of Warcraft Cataclysm Classic
Blizzard is continuing the tradition of working on older WoW campaigns alongside new ones, and it's Cataclysm this time. Cataclysm Classic will launch sometime in early 2024 with a handful of improvements and new features. It looks like less of an overhaul compared to other Classic campaigns, though seeing as Cataclysm launched in 2010, that's hardly surprising.
Diablo 4 expansion release date and name
The first Diablo 4 expansion has a name now: Vessel of Hatred. Blizzard showed a brief cinematic trailer that gives almost nothing away about what to expect, other than the existence of a jungle and what looks like some South Asian-inspired ruins, and said it should launch sometime at the end of 2024. There's still a quarterly season to look forward to every few months until then.
New Overwatch 2 hero and roadmap
Blizzard accidentally leaked their own announcement on the Nintendo eShop and then went ahead and made it official during BlizzCon. Mauga is the new Overwatch 2 hero set to take the field in Season 8. New is a little inaccurate, since Blizzard teased him in a 2019 Overwatch comic, but he's here with a full kit now. You can get a glimpse of how he plays in a trial weekend that lasts from Nov. 3 through Nov. 5, 2023.
Elsewhere in the multiplayer game's future, Blizzard teased a new support and new DPS hero launching sometime in 2024 and a new mode called Clash and Hanaoka as a new map.
Hearthstone expansion and updates
A new Hearthstone expansion launches on Nov. 14, 2023, with the card game's first neutral hero. More card packs are also in the works called "Catch-Up Packs" that contain cards from the last two years.
