This year’s BlizzCon has been packed with surprises, especially for smaller scale multiplayer titles. There’s so much to talk about, so let’s not waste time with a lengthy introduction.
If there was one thing I was absolutely certain of going into this year’s BlizzCon, it’s that we would not get any big news about Heroes of the Storm. The community has been riding high on a wave of hopium, but I was fully convinced they were going to be disappointed. Although the game has been getting more updates recently, it was all minor things that I took to be the work of a small and seemingly underqualified team. I was sure Blizzard was never going to restart development on its neglected MOBA.
Well, it’s time for me to eat my plant-based crow alternative. Xal’atath, the Harbinger herself, is coming as an all new ranged assassin hero later this month. There’s already a trailer with a deep dive on her kit, as well as a pack containing her and some new cosmetics available for pre-order. She appears to be a fairly standard mage character, but her Void Step ability does look like a very unique tool with some potential for very high skill plays. It teleports her through three fixed triangle positions, increasing her damage with each jump, but you can cancel the sequence early for more precise control of your positioning. Some shades of Mephisto, but definitely its own thing.
I’ll be honest, I would be a lot more excited about this if the Heroes team hadn’t spent the last year or so seemingly doing everything possible to make the game less fun. The constant bad decisions and subsequent scrambling to contain their obvious side effects does not leave me with a lot of faith in the decision makers behind the game.
I let out a deep sigh as I read that Xal’atath has a baked in quest. I have always disliked quest talents as a concept. Their proliferation was a factor in my taking a long break from the game prior to its (apparently temporary) foray into maintenance mode, and the current obsession with cramming the even more obnoxious mythic quests into everything has been a huge turn-off.
Still, the prospect of renewed development for Heroes is not without its appeal. They’ve already hinted at more hero releases after ol’ Xally. We know that Executor Selendis of the Protoss armada was in development prior to maintenance mode, and she’s been one of my most wanted characters forever. Selendis would definitely get me playing again. Hey, Blizzard, while we’re revisiting classic titles, can we finally get Selendis in StarCraft II co-op?
Speaking of classic titles, only slightly less shocking was the announcement of a new expansion for Warcraft III: Reforged, more than twenty years after the release of the original game. We did get some datamining hints that something was coming for Warcraft III, but I was sure it was just going to be a big balance patch, maybe a new tavern hero if they were feeling crazy. The Forsaken Kingdom expansion does have a new tavern hero, the Forsaken paladin, but more importantly there’s an entire new campaign (technically two, including a prologue) telling the story of Lordaeron’s fall and the rise of the Forsaken nation.
I’ll be real, guys, I lost my mind at this. WC3 was the most influential game of my childhood. I realize the team at Blizzard now is completely different, and that I am a different person, and Forsaken Kingdom is probably not going to leave such a powerful impact, but getting any kind of new content for such an incredible game after so much time still feels so special.
I haven’t had the time to play much of the new campaign as of this writing, and I don’t want to seem churlish by poking holes in something that is so incredibly cool to have, but I will say I’m not a big fan of the new “definitive” graphics, which seems to be the only option for the campaign. I never understood the backlash to the Reforged graphics. One of the most common comments about World of Warcraft for decades, especially from WC3 vets, has been that WoW‘s graphics are too cartoony and should be remade in a more realistic style, but when WC3 gets remade in a more realistic style everyone hates it? Make it make sense. Something else I would have liked to have seen even more than a new campaign is a replayable PvE mode like SC2 co-op missions, but if Forsaken Kingdom does well enough, who knows what the future might hold?
Another big surprise was the reveal that Blizzard is already moving on from Diablo IV to Diablo V. Given that one of the main reasons for dropping Diablo III unceremoniously has always seemed to be that D4 would be better set-up for long term support and monetization, this definitely feels like a tacit admission that D4 has been a failure. Not one to say ahtoadaso, but you know what? Ahtoadaso.
It did seem like D4 was moving in a better direction, though. The class changes in Lord of Hatred were so good I finally bought the game… though I still haven’t bought the expansion or played past the first act. It’s a bit surreal seeing D4 have almost exactly the same arc as its predecessor: Launching to heavy criticism, making big positive changes in an expansion, and then being abandoned anyway. At least it seems D4 got a conclusion to its story.
My initial reaction to D5 was pretty blase. I know they can’t really get rid of him because the whole franchise is named after him, but I’m kind of over Diablo as a character. Sanctuary is a very rich setting that could tell a lot of interesting stories, but we just keep going back to the same ideas. Returning to Westmarch as the setting also made me roll my eyes a bit. I’m never seeing Xiansai in my lifetime, am I?
That said, the deep dive panel started to make the pitch seem a lot more appealing. Between all the rhetoric about this post-apocalyptic version of Sanctuary being even more grimdarkerer, the idea that there’s still hope and something worth fighting for seems fairly core to the game. I’ve always felt that dark fantasy needs that core of underlying goodness to really work. It’s not lost on me that they mentioned a potential angelic ally, and later showed concept art that looks an awful lot like Auriel, the Archangel of Hope. The idea of having a set caravan of characters that follows you throughout the game also seems like it offers a lot of great story-telling potential; the followers were a lot of what made D3 so special to me.
The news that D5 will have more classes than any previous game, even factoring in their expansions, could go either way. More options is good, but if they’re delivering that many at launch, I’m a bit worried the classes themselves may be very shallow and lacking in customization as D4‘s initially were (and to a point still are). Overall, it’s too early to form a strong opinion on Diablo V, but colour me open to hearing more at least.
I almost forgot about the StarCraft shooter, and honestly it seems like Blizzard did too. All we got is a cinematic trailer and confirmation it’s “open world.” We had to wait for later developer interviews to get even small details. Apparently it’s a single-player narrative game rather than a live service, which is a big if welcome surprise from modern Blizzard, but it does kill any real hope of playing as anything but Terrans. Indeed, we will apparently be playing as a marine, the least interesting element of the StarCraft universe. We already have so many “dude in power armour” shooter games; why not capitalize on a more unique element of the IP? We also learned its name is apparently just “StarCraft,” which is unnecessarily confusing and feels like an attempt to erase the RTS roots of the franchise.
I don’t love the idea of a StarCraft shooter, but with so little to go off of, there’s no real way to form any strong opinions about it one way or the other, and with the release all the way ahead in 2030, it still feels like little more than an abstract concept. This wasn’t so much announcing a game as it was announcing that they have an idea for a game. Given Blizzard’s history with StarCraft shooters, I’m not entirely convinced it ever will release, and if it does it may not much resemble the current, vague pitch.
The news for Blizzard’s other non-MMORPG titles was smaller. Overwatch got the expected new hero announcement in the form of the vampiric Zimbabwean support Doctrine, as well as details on the long-awaited reworks for Sombra and Roadhog. Sombra, as has often been suggested, will finally become a support, which is sure to ruffle some feathers but is I think the best way to balance a disruptive stealth character.
My extreme bitterness over Blizzard’s shabby treatment of Stadium robbed these announcements of any joy, and threatened to overshadow all of BlizzCon for me frankly. Doctrine looks cool, and as a support fan I love the idea of support Sombra, but since neither will ever make it to the only mode I can play, it’s all moot to me.
Conversely Hearthstone is a game I never played much of and haven’t touched in years, but I gotta say their trailer for the Reign of the Black Empire expansion was super cool, and the news that the Monk — one of my favourite WoW classes — is coming to the game next year is interesting. I’m also intrigued by the idea of a revamped journal with more narrative, though I imagine that just means blocks of flavour text rather than full on story missions. Probably still not going to go back to Hearthstone, but the idea is more appealing now than it has been in a long time.
Overall, it’s been a real rollercoaster of a BlizzCon when it comes to the not so massively titles. The StarCraft shooter news landed with a dull thud, and the Diablo situation is complicated, but Forsaken Kingdom is something I never imagined possible and a really exciting sign about their willingness to continue supporting classic titles. It’s a surreal contrast to see Blizzard cutting and running with things like Stadium and Diablo IV while at the same time resurrecting Heroes of the Storm from the dead and releasing a new expansion for a game that’s probably older than the average Overwatch player.
