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Hello, BlizzCon 2026.
Unbelievable energy in here.
Wow.
And the long and winding roads that have led us to today.
What a special moment for all of us and a chance to gather around the games, the universes,
the bonds that continue to inspire our work, our friendships, and our lives.
On behalf of everyone at Blizzard, thank you for being here.
And whether you're here in person with us in Anaheim or tuning in from all over the
globe, I have to say, it is deeply moving to look out and see what I see.
And to be together again in this particular way.
Now this is by no means my first BlizzCon, but it is my first one standing on this stage
in this capacity.
And I have to say, this is a good-looking crowd.
What a beautiful sight to behold, gorgeous souls all over Anaheim,
and in this convention center, shailing from every corner of the globe.
So many different stories behind why you are here to gather as one.
And personally, it is deeply inspiring.
It is an honor.
And it is a moment that I will hold in my heart forever.
Now we all have our reasons for being here.
And BlizzCon and Blizzard is often a very personal thing.
It's certainly personal for me.
the role that video games have played in my life since I was very young, and given how deeply
and strongly I feel about Blizzard's role in the world as a beacon of creativity,
as a place where lives can change and are changed often on the daily. So whatever your
reasons are for coming to BlizzCon 2026, my hope is that this weekend can serve as a kind of oasis.
I mean, to be very clear, we also wanted to be a big ol' party, but an Oasis too.
A place for us to connect and reconnect, perhaps to heal, perhaps to be seen, be better understood,
Certainly to nerd out together.
And to just be with our people.
So this is your invitation to come as you are, to have a blast,
and to truly make legendary memories together with us.
Now, it's been a while since the last time we had BlizzCon.
We're aware.
And bringing this one to life has taken blood, sweat, tears,
a whole lot of love. Team Blizzard have been working so very hard to make this an event
that can inspire as much as it can inform. And speaking of my teammates,
if you will allow me to say this while I have the chance. I love you. Your creative spark,
Your work, your world-class care and consideration,
your gentle genius, as I like to say,
that makes Blizzard so unique in the world.
Thank you.
And to everyone here making BlizzCon what it is,
And to everyone here, making BlizzCon what it is,
thank you for fostering more joy in the world,
even when times can be tough.
And I know that they are tough.
Even when we might be carrying so much,
sometimes unseen or unspoken,
it makes it all the more significant
to come together and be together.
more significant to come together in this way and to join us in the journey of dreaming
bigger and for pushing what's possible. Now, this weekend, I do have to say, is jam-packed
with goodness. But I also have to admit that there is so much going on at Blizzard right
right now, we couldn't even fit it into this weekend if we tried.
And I'm pretty proud of that, too.
So as the devs take the stage today, show them some love, y'all.
It's hard to get up on the stages.
And you'll be hearing things that are near and dear to our hearts, including something
near and dear to mine in this first announcement.
In fact, when we first started planning BlizzCon way back when,
I flat out told the team,
I'm not going, I'll cut the check, but I'm not going,
unless we have something real to share about this game in particular.
So I'm very happy, and I'm here,
to be able to share something straight from the nexus of our hearts.
This will do my sleep.
This realm belongs to me.
That's right. Heroes of the Storm is pleased to welcome Zalatath.
She will officially be coming to the game later this month, and she'll be available
on the PTR starting this Monday.
Those of you here in Anaheim will be able to play her all week
along in the Blizzard Arcade.
Now, to all the Hots players out there, I hear you, I see you.
Thank you for believing in this game, for carrying the torch,
And for reminding us sometimes very loudly
what this game means to you.
And who knows?
We might even have another new hero on the way in the near future.
CHEERS
So stay tuned, and we will see you in the nexus.
CHEERS
Yeah.
Now, secondly,
For decades, we've brought entire universes to life through our games.
But the stories within them have never belonged to just one medium.
And there are still so many stories we want to tell.
And we thought it was time we brought those stories to life beyond gaming in a big way.
Perhaps on new screens.
After all, we are more than just Blizzard games.
We are Blizzard entertainment.
And in that vein,
we've been working very hard to find
the absolute best creative partnerships to tell even more stories.
So while exciting things are underway across all of our biggest universes,
Today, we are happy to announce one project in particular.
We are thrilled to share that we are in development on a new animated series for Diablo with Netflix.
And as a big Diablo player myself and as someone who loves the indulgent darkness of sanctuary,
I am very excited to see this project come to life.
And Diablo, I promise, is just the beginning to our Overwatch community, to our Warcraft
community. And who knows, perhaps even some of our other universes, just know that there
are great discussions being had. And trust me, while I begged and I pleaded to be able
to share more today, I can't spill the beans just yet. But I know, I promise, as soon as
As we can, we will share more details with you.
All right, before I pass the mic, I just want to say thank you again to everyone here making
these memories alongside us.
And my hope is that BlizzCon can feel like a sacred space where you can enjoy, you can
make lasting bonds, and make this place and this community feel like home.
that my hope is that in our coming together in this way, we can remind the world why community
like this matters so very much, why artistry matters, why creativity matters, and why making
games and playing games together will matter always. Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful
close-up.
Joining us now, Dan Hay.
28 years ago, I saw a very specific Blizzard cinematic, and it changed the course of my life.
I saw the danger and the mystery, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
So I sent my first demo reel and resume off to Blizzard Entertainment right here.
Not just because I wanted a job, but because I wanted to be part of something.
I wanted to be part of this, this community, the building of these worlds, a part of this
thing that we all love.
Blizzard wasn't just a company to me, it was the dream.
Nope, I sent off the letter and I waited.
I waited for days, I waited for weeks.
And then one day, I got a letter back.
I remember the weight of it in my hands.
I remember opening it.
I remember the font.
I remember the blue logo at the top of the page
and I saw those first words and I read, unfortunately,
at this time, we are unable to.
And I knew that was it.
It wasn't gonna happen.
But that's the funny thing about dreams.
Dreams don't die.
Dreams don't fade.
Dreams are patient.
Dreams wait.
So I waited.
And for the next 25 years, I made very cool games.
I worked with incredible people.
I built things I'm truly proud of.
But in the back of my mind, always there was this one thought.
One day, Blizzard.
One day.
And then, a few years ago, my phone rang.
And I looked down and I saw the name Blizzard Entertainment.
And, bang, I was right back there. 25 years disappeared.
I was right back there in that moment,
holding that unopened letter and feeling that same moment.
And so I answered the phone.
And this time, there was an opportunity.
This time, there was a mission to assemble a team
worthy of carrying the legacy of one of Blizzard's most beloved games.
And that team is here today.
Team, meet the world.
World, meet the team.
A team built with one purpose, a team built with one goal, to return to a universe forged
in interstellar war.
This is something new, an open world shooter where every step is earned, not from above,
down on the ground, in the mud, in the fire, honoring the past, its tone, its truth, but
with an opportunity to push beyond it.
We are here standing shoulder to shoulder with you.
We are here to reignite this universe alongside each and every one of you.
We are here to make StarCraft!
But let's be honest, it's about damn time.
The galaxy is harsh and unforgiving.
And our enemies surround us.
So I ask you this, do you feel safe?
The swarm have returned to destroy our lands and slaughter our families.
Will you let them?
So-called firstborn judges from the shadows.
Will you beg them for salvation?
Will you do to protect our people?
Will you free or will you fight?
You are the best and the brightest that the minion has to offer.
You are single. You are unstoppable. Millions of lives depend on you. You cannot. You will
You are not defeated!
You are warriors!
You are the elite!
And the community will give you the training, the tools, and the opportunity to feed your spirit and fulfill your destiny!
You have done the greatest fighting force the century has ever seen.
You fight now for a cause that will echo through history.
You fight now for mankind's very survival!
You will become more than just a creature.
You will become more than just recruits, you will become more than just soldiers, you will become heroes.
Now, go forward for the glory of the Dominion!
Please welcome Aaron Keller.
Oh my god!
That was insane!
You know, they didn't let me watch that until today,
until right now.
This is pretty incredible.
And there is so much more coming,
so let's get into it.
The world of Overwatch is so special to me and to this team.
It is a future full of hope, optimism, and bravery.
And at its core, it is a game about heroes.
They are the beating heart of everything we create.
We are releasing 10 new heroes this year.
From someone as absolutely ridiculous as Jetpack Hat,
Yes, to someone whose connection to Doomfist could set something much bigger in motion.
And you've just got to see it.
I
You all know the plan. Bring me the box. Move quickly.
See you soon.
Let's go.
Look, we all know he's been all doing no this lately. But your feelings matter too. You should talk to him.
We'll talk later.
He's in there?
For now.
Sumra, what is your status?
Almost done.
Do you have the asset?
Come on.
Come on, come on, come on!
I would ask what brings you here but clearly you need a hand oh I like this guy
I should have called sooner.
You're here now.
Joining now, Ben Fell and Miranda Moyer.
The ninth hero joining Overwatch this year is Doctrine.
Doomfist's newest ally is a support hero armed with a scepter that heals allies and damages
enemies.
He can rush through battle, shrouded in darkness, while his drones heal teammates and speed
up their attacks.
That really sets doctrine apart is infuse, which transforms his next ability.
Imagine not just dashing, but taking flight.
And who says vampires need to be creepy and overwatch?
They're cool.
And they come with mechanical bats.
You can learn all about doctrine in today's deep dive panel.
We are fired up for doctrine, and he's coming next month in season five.
So let's be honest.
What you all really want to know is when can you play him?
And if you're here at BlizzCon, the answer is right now.
And if you're viewing this at home, doctrine's hero trial will start as soon as we finish
talking.
Earlier this year, we kicked off the first year-long narrative in Overwatch history.
That story has already taken some exciting turns, so we should probably get you caught
up on what's going on and why we just watched Doomfist break into a prison.
Miranda, our narrative lead is going to break it all down for you.
So personally, I am still freaking out over the heroes of the storm news.
Huge, huge shout out to the gall mains in the audience.
I know you're out there, but I'm going to lock in and try to give you guys a good recap.
So at the top of this year,
Banda challenged Doomfist for control of Talon.
And after a tough fight,
she defeated and presumably killed him,
presumably, allegedly.
And then she says, hey,
enough with all this hiding in the shadows nonsense.
Talon is going to take over the world.
After a little pit stop to blow up Watchpoint Gibraltar, she kicked off her big global conquest.
She raided Watchpoint Grand Mesa, she allied with the Hashimoto Clan in Japan,
and she even got the Junkers to attack Busan.
She left all of these messes for Overwatch to handle while she kept claiming victory after victory after victory.
However, it turns out in the background of all of this, that Doomfist is alive.
I was also shocked. I was very surprised. He's alive, and if you ignore the part where his arm got cut off and he got thrown out a window, then he's doing great.
And after a little bit of introspection, after regrouping with his favorite girlies, he's back. He's far more aura than ever, as you saw.
And if he wants to get back on top, he is going to need a hand from a figure of his past, Doctrin.
And I think that just about gets us caught up.
And if you've been waiting for the right time to come back to Overwatch, Season 5 was built for you.
We have a new map, Grim's Button, a new hero, Doctrin.
We have the return of Doki Watch.
We have unvaulted battle passes and we have two of the most requested
hero reworks ever or should we say re reworks?
Robodog will now actually be able to help out his team
Plus his hook then instant death combo should be a lot less frustrating to play against and
And Sombra has received her own hotfix turning her into a support.
Everyone here will get to play these reworks as well as the new Mapgrim's voting all weekend.
Season 5 will also see the conclusion of the reign of talent story.
Then in season 6, we will release our 10th hero of the year,
who's investigating certain parts of the world,
certain sectors of the world, you could say.
But we're going to keep quiet on any more clues about him
just yet.
This is my first ever BlizzCon, and it
is amazing to be here with all of you.
And I love what we do, because we
get to do something that's really important for the world.
People need a place to come together,
to be with friends, to get connected to community.
And being here with all of you in person is incredibly
inspirational for me.
Speaking of inspiration, we have an amazing lineup
here at BlizzCon.
We're thrilled to have Yoah Sobi performing
tomorrow during the Overwatch World Cup.
We are also so hyped to have Leseraphon back at BlizzCon
to close out their own game.
And to celebrate their return to BlizzCon,
we also have an all-new in-game collaboration,
and it's available starting right now.
But that's not all.
Leseraphim will also be joining Devs later today
to talk about the collaboration
and their newest music video, Made by Night.
In addition to awesome game demos
and all these talented musical acts,
there's something that I'm personally
really excited about.
Tomorrow, right here on this stage,
we're doing something that is completely new.
It's a live overwatch tabletop RPG called Questwatch,
and it was written by Matt Mercer and the Overwatch narrative team.
Cassidy will be your game master,
guiding a group of heroes, including Symmetra, Sombra,
Reinhardt and Vendetta,
through a one-of-a-kind story that was built just for this weekend.
Now, I love tabletop gaming, I'm an aspiring game master myself,
and I'm definitely going to be in the audience with all of you for this one.
I think a lot about what makes Overwatch special,
and at the heart of it is our vision of a hopeful future.
And toward that end, following Quest Watch will be auctioning off custom miniatures,
artwork, collectibles, this jacket,
Created by members of the team and signed by developers and voice actors all supporting Make-A-Wish.
I have a personal connection with Make-A-Wish, so to be able to partner with them, to raise money, to help more families,
the way they helped mine is such a special gift.
This has been the biggest year in Overwatch's history, and it all started at our
2026 Overwatch spotlight. That's when we made our ambitions clear,
to be the best competitive experience in the world. Wherever you are, wherever you
are in the world, however you play shooters, we have an Overwatch hero that was
built for you, and we want to be the game for you.
And since we have you here, I have to sneak in one quick plug for our next spotlight in
February with a new story, a fresh set of heroes, and some amazing new systems.
We are aiming for peak Overwatch.
is so incredibly special to us I genuinely can't even begin to say how much this game means to
all of us and we can't thank all of you enough for all of the passion dedication and hope that you
have shared with us for the past 10 years thank you so much and have a great blessed gun
You did it!
Terror, destruction, hatred.
For thirty years people has gripped millions of people across the world.
It may already be closer than you think.
As your love was drawn into an internal conflict between heaven and hell, look for the warning signs, mysterious literature, occult clothing, unidentified items, playing video games to the point of utter devotion.
Devotion.
In three decades, over 130 million of us have made sanctuary our home, and stood against
the forces of hell, side by side, generation after generation, through friendships and
Cosplay and conventions.
From LAN parties to live streams.
There are literally like these bugs.
Oh my gosh.
We shared in every victory and defeat.
And today, more of us than ever continue the fight.
For this conflict is eternal, and evil never truly dies.
It always returns more powerful than before.
From the world of Diablo, welcome Tiffany Wacht and Brent Gibson.
What's up BlizzCon?
I absolutely love seeing all of you together like this.
I've been to every BlizzCon, my first few as a player,
and sorry, Brent, but for the Alliance.
Oh!
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been to every BlizzCon. That's right, it's my family. All right, well back then I felt
how much Blizzard's world meant to people. Now that I helped build one of them, I feel
it even more and that is really special.
Yeah, I know exactly how you feel. When we were preparing for this, we had a lot of discussion
about what 30 years looks like. And for me, it was about sneaking upstairs when I was
16 years old to install Diablo I on a computer
that my mom brought home from school for the summer.
And sorry, mom, I didn't uninstall it.
LAUGHTER
Yeah, well, I got the Diablo II battle chest for my 18th birthday.
And pretty soon I was at LAN parties,
doing bail runs, and hunting for Stona Jordans.
And we weren't alone.
Together, it's been 30 years of slaying demons, grinding for that perfect drop, and saying,
one more Dundoo.
And I know all of you have crafted your own stories just like us.
Since 1996, more than 130 million players have helped shape Diablo into what it is today.
But, anniversaries aren't just about looking back.
there a chance to get excited about what's still ahead.
And after Johanna's announcement
that a Diablo animated series is in development with Netflix,
I'd say the future is off to a pretty great start.
Yeah!
Yeah!
And we've got a lot more to show you today.
You know, one of my favorite things
about working with this team is they love a good surprise.
I have no idea what you're talking about, but like I said, we love a good surprise.
We started the year off by shadow-dropping the Paladin at the game awards, and then we
we followed up by bringing the warlock,
one of the most metal classes to Diablo IV,
Diablo Immortal, and Diablo II Resurrected.
And in just a few days, Diablo IV begins its biggest
anniversary moment yet, celebrating 30 years of darkness.
Season of Hell's Legacy launches Tuesday, September 15th.
This season, as the dead return from pandemonium, a familiar soul will find his way back to
sanctuary, Deckard Cain.
Deckard leads you into waking nightmares, where some of Diablo's most unforgettable
moments come back to haunt you.
You return to places every Diablo player remembers.
Tristram Cathedral, the World Stone Chamber, and the Durance of Hate.
Yeah, and, and, waiting inside are Bale, Mephisto, and the birthday boy himself, Diablo.
You'll face all three prime evils, reclaiming the fragments of their souls, and then you're
going to decide which evil you would want to embrace.
And that choice will unlock new powers and will reshape the entire season around you.
Of course, it wouldn't be a party without some presence.
to collect legendary gear inspired by every era of Diablo,
including the return of iconic treasures like the Stone of Jordan.
And yes, I still get excited every time one drops.
For all of you here at BlizzCon, you can jump into a special season of Hell's Legacy experience today on the show floor.
You're going to be battling your way through some of Diablo's greatest moments with an
old friend to take you along the way.
And trust me, you'll want to stay a while and listen.
And maybe you'll find an utterly malevolent evil waiting to butcher you at the end.
Sounds high stakes.
We're really doing this, huh?
Yeah, I got to keep my dad set us in check.
Moving on.
For everyone else, you won't have to wait long to play at home.
It's fine long.
Oh, hey Joe, it's Diablo and Joe Shelley everyone.
Welcome to the party Joe. Thank you. So what you got there?
Well, since I'm sure nobody has heard anything about why I might be holding this, I'm excited
to officially announce that the Diablo 4 Age of Hatred Collection is coming to Nintendo
Switch 2 on September 15th, alongside the season of House Legacy.
And if you're here at BlizzCon, you don't have to wait.
You can play the Nintendo Switch 2 demo on the show floor today.
All right, also on the Diablo show floor of this BlizzCon,
you can test your skills in Diablo Immortal Tournament.
And we've got a special collaboration to talk about.
Tomorrow, we'll hear all about it from the creator
of Spawn himself, Todd McFarlane.
When I found out that Todd was going to be here,
the 13-year-old me just freaked out,
like really freaked out.
And honestly, the 46-year-old me
is still freaking out today.
Todd was my first taste of real dark fantasy.
And he's inspired an entire generation of storytellers.
And tomorrow, you'll hear from him directly
at a live panel and drawing session,
or he's going to give you a glimpse at what awaits
when spawn comes to Diablo Immortal on September 29th.
So Diablo has always been shaped by the heroes, villains,
and stories that players remember most.
Earlier this year, Diablo 4 players finally set foot
on the shores of the Skobos Isles.
And almost immediately, one question started showing up everywhere.
Where is the Amazon?
Yeah, trust me, we're all asking the same thing.
And Lord of Hatred, the vision for the Amazons really took shape.
And we realized there was a huge opportunity we couldn't pass up.
So next year, one of Diablo's most iconic warriors arrives in Diablo 4.
So please welcome, the Amazon.
After being in Skolvos, getting to play the class that's from there, that's so cool.
I can't wait to play her.
As someone who spent way too much time playing a Boaz on in Diablo 2, this is a reveal I've
been looking forward to for a long time.
Yes, this fearless fighter moves with speed, precision, and an absolute control over the
battlefield.
As the Amazon, we're going to wield the bow, of course, but she'll also be bringing an
entirely new weapon to Diablo IV, the iconic Javan.
The Amazon class pack is going to arrive the first half of 2027.
So make sure you join us tomorrow for the Diablo 4 What's Next panel, where me and the
team are going to take a deeper look into what inspired the Amazon's gameplay, look,
and feel.
We'll also be premiering the season of Hell's Legacy gameplay trailer, so you're not going
to want to miss out.
So that's what's coming for Diablo IV.
But today, we're also ready to look beyond the age of hatred to give you a first glimpse
of Diablo's next error.
For thirty years, Sanctuary has stood on the edge of Olivia.
And every time, heroes have arrived to push the darkness back.
Until now.
The angels were supposed to save us.
No one has ever done it!
What's the word for the leaders of the moral earth?
Reveal the truth!
And fail the weak!
Sanctuary...
Matthew!
It's his...
The Lord of Terror has returned.
That's right! Diablo 5 is coming in spring, 2029.
The heroes are gone. Sanctuary has fallen and Diablo has won. For the first time, you
won't be fighting to stop Diablo from taking Sanctuary. You'll enter a world where he
already has. There are no towns or safe places waiting to protect you.
changes everything, how you survive, what powers you're willing to claim, and what you're
willing to sacrifice.
At the heart of Diablo 5 is the simple question.
What must you become when the world has already fallen?
So join me and Tiffany this afternoon for the Diablo 5 Org-ing the Next Thera panel,
where the team will take you inside the fallen sanctuary we're building.
And we'll talk about how we're evolving the world,
classes,
and the story for Diablo's next era.
Thank you for continuing to come back to Sanctuary.
Thank you for believing in Diablo.
And thank you for walking through the darkness with us for 30 years.
We'll see you in hell.
Oh, that's the other one!
Oh, that's the other one!
Please welcome, Nathan Lines Smith.
Whoa, that Diablo is so dark.
Let's go back to the tavern.
Hello, BlizzCon!
It is so good to be back.
And I am thrilled to be here.
Partstone has been my favorite game
since I first played 13 years ago.
And I am so proud of everything the team has
been crafting for you.
It means the world to us that you're here.
All right, let's see what cards we open.
Oh, we found Brendan.
Give it up for Brendan.
Yeah!
Yeah!
Four mana, overstatted, no overload, no balance patch is required.
Wow, I'm just a common.
Golden common!
You're quite animated.
I'm going to choose to focus on the overstatted.
Hello everyone.
It is so cool to be on this stage.
I don't know about you all, but I'm still recovering from the chills I got from that StarCraft trailer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was the game that introduced Blizzard Entertainment to me as a kid.
Fast forward 16 years, Hearthstone launches, and I've been hooked ever since.
It is such a special part of my life.
Nathan, do you mind if we take a selfie?
Actually, let's do it.
You're really cool.
OK.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It has been such a privilege getting
to help shape what comes next for Hearthstone.
So without further ado, let's take a look at our next card.
Epic!
Oh, so this gets to be an epic.
Well, it's a pretty epic expansion.
I
for the first time in Hearthstone, we're going tens of thousands of miles away from
thousands of years into Azeroth's past, right into the battle between the old gods and the
titans during the Black Empire, when the old gods were at the peak of their power. And that's
saying a lot because they were already pretty terrifying in 2016. Corruption, madness, tentacles,
The classics, and because an old God expansion wouldn't be complete without giving you something
new to experiment with, we've added an appropriately chaotic keyword.
With Assemble, we can now merge two Hearthstone cards together to create a powerful new card.
Like, what if we had Marslyn Thresher and merged it with Dragon Bay?
After you cast a spell, deal 5 damage to a random enemy?
Nothing bad could possibly happen with that.
The assemble mechanic pulls from a curated pool of over 250 cards, and I have a sneaking
suspicion that we are going to find some pretty busted combos once Reign of the Black Empire
launches in a bit over a month on October 20th.
Okay, back to our card pack. Our next card is...
A Battlegrounds card?
That's right. Bob's got some strange new guests in the Tavern too.
There's a brand new minion type, Aberrations.
They're strange, unpredictable, possibly leaking from dimensions
they definitely should not be leaking from,
and they're gonna shake up lobbies
in some really exciting ways.
Every aberration that dies brings the Old Gods
a little closer to waking up,
and when they do, you and your opponent
are definitely going to notice.
For everyone that's here at BlizzCon,
aberrations are available to play on the show floor today.
All right, we have two cards left.
Let's do this one next.
Ah, our overhauled journal.
One of our goals for Hearthstone is to make every trip to the tavern feel like part of
a larger adventure.
So we asked ourselves, what if we put narrative into the game, sharing the story of each expansion?
We thought that was cool.
And what if all the quests, achievements, and events were automatically and cohesively
tied together with that narrative?
That sounded really fun, so we're going to do that.
The updated journal launches alongside the Black Empire,
and over the course of the expansion,
it will grow alongside the story,
connecting everything you've been doing along the way.
Speaking of, we've got all new events coming too,
from deals on a mysterious black market to epic boss fights.
And tabern brawls are getting even bigger too,
including something we've never done before.
2v2 Hearthstone, where you and a friend can team up and take down another duo in the brawl.
That means double the teamwork, double the chaos, and let's be honest, someone else to
blame when everything goes horribly wrong.
I know you're not talking about me.
This is just the beginning.
The journal is going to keep growing with new events, new adventures, and new ways to
experience each expansion story.
So whenever you pull up a chair, there's always something new to discover.
Plus, there's plenty we haven't shown you yet.
We're sharing our roadmap and more details about the journal and everything else we talked
about during the What's Next panel later today.
Nathan, we've still got one more card to flip.
Oh, that's right.
What do we fight for?
For the challenge.
To cultivate your spirit.
To rise above the sky.
I'll take it!
To rise above!
But mostly...
to just have fun!
With time, the Monk Flaps is coming to Hofstor!
Chin is agile, adaptable, and always ready to change his approach.
I have loved feeling how flexible the Monk is.
you can adapt to what's happening in game
and then pull off some incredible combos
when the moment feels just right.
We're doing more in Hearthstone than ever before
and it feels awesome.
The Hearthstone Tavern doors are open to everyone,
whether you're playing on your PC while watching TV,
multitasking on a video call,
or folding laundry while you're playing on your phone.
The Tavern is always there for you.
Uh-oh, I better wrap this up.
We'll have more to share about Monk next year.
Until then, keep laughing, theory-crafting,
and good luck fighting off the Black Empire.
Thank you all for being a part of this incredible community.
And thank you for joining us on this adventure.
And we'll see you in the tavern.
Woo-hoo!
Woo-hoo!
Woo-hoo!
Woo-hoo!
Woo-hoo!
Woo-hoo!
Woo-hoo!
Wisconsin, give it up for Holly Longdale.
What's up, please come!
Do we have any wow players out there?
That must mean we must have some heart.
Where's my alliance?
Yeah!
Excellent.
I am so excited to be here with you today, and so is the team.
I wanted to give a shout out to the team.
They've been working really hard for you.
I love you all.
You're going to get to see the team on the show floor this weekend, and we're going to
be running tabletop adventures with you.
So come by and hang out with us so we can make some incredible
memories together.
All right, let's get to it.
We're going to light a fire that's
going to burn for decades.
And it starts today.
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
We're going to start with the World Soul Saga, so please welcome Ian Hazakostas.
Hello BlizzCon!
It is so great to be back out here.
This is going to be an amazing day.
This is going to be an amazing weekend, an amazing year for Warcraft fans.
Let's kick it off with some World Soul Saga.
So, it has been really fun so far this year watching you all jump into midnight and rediscover
the lands of Calphalos.
We've been admiring your wildly creative home decorations that make us glad we decided
not to implement those neighborhood HLAs.
And of course, we've been reading all your theories about where this story is headed.
We've been pretty tight-lipped about that over the last few months, saying, that'll
have to wait till BlizzCon a whole lot.
But, well, look where we are.
Three years ago, on this stage, we announced not one, but all three expansions that comprised
the World Soul saga.
And today, we stand just about at the midpoint of that journey.
Beginning with the assault on Dalaran, then into the depths of the Earth, and back out
again, we've been hot on Xalatath's heels, battling to save our world from being plunged
into darkness.
Now as we regroup following the events at the Sunwell, we're currently in the middle
of a time-honored narrative interlude known as a Troll Patch.
Speaking of which, congratulations to Team Liquid on last week's World First Clear.
Any hometown audience here, but also kudos to Echo for their excellent play and making
it a neck-and-neck race that came down to the wire.
We have heard from many of you that Curse of Wool Attack
seemed a bit like a digression from the main plot.
But hopefully over the next few weeks,
it's going to start to become apparent how it's leading us
inexorably towards what comes next.
For a while now, the World Soul Saga narrative
has been about moving chess pieces into place
on the proverbial board, getting ready for our end game,
setting things up.
But we are just about done with that phase of things.
From here on out, from now, and to the end of not just
midnight, but the whole world saw saga. It's all gas, no brakes.
And that starts with what comes next, the next major content for midnight,
eclipse.
That is patch 12.2 for those of you keeping track at home.
Zalatath has been a step ahead of us at every juncture,
But she now stands, or I guess technically hovers, before her ultimate objective.
And I think it's about time we confront her directly.
Now some of you may be wondering, what exactly is that objective?
Well, let me just show you.
You know what I'm here for.
You know what I am.
Now what?
Open the gate.
Anomaly.
Void-claw-of-the-creator.
Wound-core-access-demand.
Fascinating.
How many eons have passed since your creators abandoned this place?
The Titans are eternal.
They will never abandon that which lies within. Your incursion is doomed to fail.
Let's try anyway, shall we?
Are you the capable of fear, that suffocating feeling when you realize you will not survive
And you are powerless to stop the destruction!
I felt that once.
Never again.
You are...
Not the Titans, nor the Old Gods, nor all mortal races could keep you from me.
Soon we shall become one, and then everything that could ever challenge my supremacy will be devoured.
That's right, Zalitath has been after our world soul since the days of, well, that
Hearthstone expansion we just saw, Black Empire.
And now she stands but a toes length away from total victory.
And if she succeeds in claiming her prize, well, that will be checkmate.
So we have our work cut out for us to save the least.
But I know you're up to the task.
Now, if you want to learn more about not just Eclipse, but everything else that lies ahead
of midnight, please join us this afternoon right here for our Midnight What's Next?
panel.
We'll be digging into story, systems, and features, including a new standalone game
mode on the way, and a peek at the next remix experience coming next year.
So that's midnight.
Now I know many of you came here hoping to learn a lot more about the last Titan.
Believe me, we can't wait to tell you all about it, but we can't get into too many details
just yet, at least not without some pretty catastrophic midnight spoilers.
But suffice it to say that the events that will unfold in Eclipse in the world core will
set the stage for a revelation and a conflict that is not just the final chapter of the
Wholesale Saga, but the culmination of over two decades of World of Warcraft.
The Last Titan will bring an extraordinary chapter of Warcraft to a close while laying
the groundwork for what comes next.
Now, the Last Titan isn't just a return to Northrend.
It's a reflection on a whole generation of your valor, your deeds.
From the shifting sands of anchorage, to the frozen throne,
to the world breaker, to the burning legion,
to the afterlife, and back again.
We have fought to defend our home, our world,
and she needs us one last time.
Early next year, once we're on the other side of a eclipse,
we will have so much more information to share with you.
But for now, let me just leave you all
with a glimpse of what you'll be up against
last Titan.
The
the
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
You're going to have to forgive me, but holy shit.
That big sucker is coming with friends.
That mood right there is where Warcraft is going.
We heard you.
We are putting the war back in Warcraft.
Armies, battles, bloodshed, survival, it all harkens back to the stories that started
it all.
It's hard to believe it's been over 24 years since we launched Warcraft 3, even longer
for Warcraft.
And like I said before, the team's been working really hard for you.
And that includes our Warcraft 3 team.
They have been tinkering, my friends, and they have a story to tell.
Are you ready to go to war?
For the first time in 23 years, we have a new campaign in Warcraft 3.
And Forsaken Kingdom, we'll see some new faces, some are peeling and totally gross,
and some will be familiar, like Sylvanas.
You'll experience the fall of Lordaeron and how it came to be known as the Undercity.
And with our forces and our elite strats, of course, we'll find out what it truly means
to be forsaken.
What are you doing, myself?
Suck sleeping in here, Father Ham.
We have to fight back. We have to thrive out these monsters and reclaim our homes.
You call it the Undercity, gone from the sins and catacombs in his motorized fallen capital.
That is not the end.
It is near to the beginning.
Whoever you are in life, you're now one of us.
This forsaken kingdom need not stand alone.
My friend, with the lights, I will fulfill your terms.
Welcome to the Forsaken.
You shall be invulnerable kids, on your own, on your own!
You can't control me.
Get out of here!
I'm coming!
I'm coming!
You're going to kill me!
I'm coming!
I'm coming!
You're going to kill me!
You're going to kill me!
all the fields.
And if you want to learn more, we have two panels later today.
And by the way, Warcraft 3 Forsaking Kingdom launches today.
And if you're here at BlizzCon, you can play it on the show floor.
All right.
We ain't done yet.
So, let's shift gears a little bit here.
It's time to talk about something new.
Maybe address some of the rumors out there, because we know a lot of you love that nostalgic
flavor of vanilla.
So, what if we take vanilla and really plus it up?
Our home, Azeroth, her untold stories, call to our hearts, revealing lands unexplored for
of Goblin's secrets, and new horizons.
to hope, to adventure, forever.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, this is Classic Plus.
I have to tell you though, you only have a little bit of time to rally your friends,
your newbies, your former crew, anyone you want to live in Azeroth with, get ready because
World of Warcraft forever launches in seven weeks.
On November 4th.
I'll say that again, November 4th.
November 4th, everybody.
So beta starts this Thursday.
And, if you're here, you could play forever on the show floor.
World of Warcraft Forever is your new permanent home.
It's a new beginning that never ends.
And I promise you, if you're a past current or a new player, now's the time to get into
the game that changed everything.
Let me tell you why.
We're giving you another way to play
wow that's friendly, familiar, and new.
It's going to live right alongside our modern and classic
games.
Forever is focused on what made Vanilla so memorable
in the first place, the world as the main character.
Yes.
Instead of one big heroic story,
you will carve your own path.
It's also a place dedicated to community
and making sure that it's nurtured.
And above all, there's no rush here.
It's the journey that counts, not the destination.
There's going to be a lot to discover, too.
It's not all going to be solved or predictable.
Ultimately, it's easy to get into and play, and deep enough to stay forever.
Honestly, this is a new opportunity to get back to what the heart is of MMOs and what
makes them so damn special.
It's like that absolute fricking magic of adventuring
and running into battle or the thrill of a new encounter
with your crew when you're trying to click your way out
of a certain peril.
The adrenaline of it all.
For faction, for friends, for lint.
We love our loot.
Even the chill moments are going to bring us home.
Like meeting a new friend on a run like I did when I was making the trek from Teldrassil
to Iron Forge with the music, giving the vibes the whole way.
It's about all of us and it's about feeling at home with your people.
There are so many great moments like this to come, and a lot more.
Between the well-worn pages of the history we know,
lie the stories we haven't heard.
Countless adventures, untold,
from the time when it all began,
Through the hidden paths in ancient forests, above and beyond familiar peace, your journey awaits.
Let the drums of war thunder for ever.
I cannot wait for you to join us in forever.
It all starts up after the advance of Warcraft 3's Forsaken Kingdom when Lorda runfalls
but before Bolton Core.
So essentially, year one of vanilla wow.
But the future is untold.
We may see stories that could have happened
and some that didn't happen at all.
We are all going to meet up on our original continents
and bark on the journey to 60
and stay at 60 indefinitely.
The simple explanation for that is, we don't want to race ahead and leave our accomplishments,
our gear, and our friends behind.
That said, we will progress in new ways and get updates as we go, new stories, new experiences,
and more.
And it's all based on what we've been hearing from you.
And for that inspiration, we want to thank you.
We are nothing without our community.
Forever exists because the team soaked up many, many years of ideas and passion for
Classic Plus.
They brought their own magic to it and created this adventure for all of us.
We've got a lot more to tell you, so stick around for our what's next panel, which will
will be right here immediately after this.
And tomorrow morning, we'll get into the details in our deep dive panel.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
Oh, my heart.
I love you.
It's quite a start to this BlizzCon party, right?
Not bad.
Is the aircraft back?
Yes!
Diablo 5 is on the go.
We've got a new hero in Overwatch.
Valetath is floating around the Nexus.
And she's trying to steal our world toll, rude.
And we all get to play in Azra forever.
And that's what our worlds have always been.
The time we get to spend here is truly precious.
I think I'll see it again. I love you all.
And this is where opening ceremony begins.
And this is where opening ceremony begins.
And this is where opening ceremony begins.
And this is where opening ceremony begins.
And this is where opening ceremony begins, ends, it ends right now.
But our adventures are going to begin.
I do want to say from our hearts to yours, thank you, truly thank you.
And now it's time to play, have an absolutely epic, bad ass play with BlizzCon.
Please come!
MSI, take the next step in upgrading your visual experience with MSI's QD OLED monitors.
Built to last, brilliance ahead.
Gigabyte, upgrade your life.
Secret Lab. Pro-grade ergonomics for the highest level of play.
I'm going to go get some water.
I'm going to go get some water.
I'm going to go get some water.
BlizzCon is brought to you by Fanta.
Lips smacking deliciousness.
Want to Fanta?
Nintendo Switch 2, NVIDIA GeForce RTX, Game Changer.
And now, join the World of Warcraft team for our first look at the next chapter of Azeroth.
Hello again, Longtime No See.
It is amazing to be up here actually able to at last talk about what somehow both the best-kept and worst-kept secret of the summer.
And shout out to the classic WoW subreddit. No, it's not too late to start. We're the Warcrafts forever.
This is a story that really began nine years ago in these halls when we announced WoW Classic to the world.
And then a couple years after that, of course, we welcomed you in
to dive back into Azeroth to experience it as it was in the beginning.
And millions came in and settled in
and began tackling Emyxia and Rhaegros,
leveling up to 60, really re-experiencing that journey.
But the conversations naturally started to emerge around what would come next.
And those conversations grew louder.
Many people, of course, hoped to continue on into the Burning Crusade
and a chance to go back through the dark portal
and show Illidan just how prepared we've all become
after 20 years of min-maxing next level.
And of course, that is what came to pass.
But there was another group, even back then in 2020 or so,
a group of dreamers, people for whom the vanilla game was
just about the perfect MMO, if not for already being solved
and already being experienced.
They didn't want to leave behind that world
grounded in the immediate aftermath of Warcraft 3
and began a journey forward through the timeline.
They didn't want to replace their hard-won raid epics
with greens from Zangarmush.
They didn't want to go from the sprawling expanse of Eastern kingdoms and Kalimdor
to an outland that you could fly across in just a few minutes on an epic mount.
What if we could stay at level 60? They asked.
And so did we.
What if we could build some new content
and tell new stories in that immersive world?
And what if we could make mean specs even just a tiny bit viable?
Paladin is talking to you here.
But this was 2020,
and the reality is that the team that we had at the time,
the development pipeline that we had at the time,
were something that had been purpose-built to restore and curate
an old version of the game,
not to add to it, not to build new things.
And so, for a time, that dream stayed a dream.
But that ember of an idea smoldered
over the months and years to follow.
And it took hold within the classic team as well.
People on the team would come forward left and right,
pitching versions of what it might look like
to add content to change that vanilla game.
And that led us to 2023,
when we decided to test the waters with a certain experiment,
also announced right here.
Season of Discovery was an experiment on many levels.
Sog was awesome, but it was deliberately pushing boundaries, and we pretty much said that outright
at the time, because it was a time-limited seasonal experience, it gave us a chance to
find the limits of how much change was too much change.
How far could we go before things started to feel like they didn't belong in that world
or alongside those philosophies?
But we did make a bunch of new quests, new items, new class abilities, even all new dungeons
and raids like Karazhan Crypt and the Scarlet Enclave.
And we sure found those limits,
but along the way, we learned a ton of valuable lessons.
And probably a couple of years ago, by the middle of 2024,
looking at how it had gone,
we were certain that it was not only possible,
but compelling to pursue this vision.
From season of discovery, we learned what worked and what didn't.
We learned how to build content 20 years later
that felt like it belonged alongside the original stuff.
And in the meantime,
we'd absorbed years of experience
of how players today approach the classic game,
which is different in many ways from how it was back in 2005
when the internet was a different place and knowledge was a different thing.
But most of all, we heard loud and clear
from everyone in Season of Discovery
that they didn't want just a temporary season,
but instead a forever home,
where their investments would be meaningful,
where their journey could continue forward.
And so here we are.
Thank you to all those dreamers along the way
who kept this idea alive and gave the team inspiration
over the years.
It's been a lot of fun over the last year,
reading and watching all the online discourse
about what Classic Plus could be, should be,
and definitely shouldn't be.
But now let me turn it over to the team
so they can tell you exactly what it is.
Hello, BlizzCon!
So what exactly is WoW forever?
For us, it begins with a simple belief.
There are still adventures worth telling in the original world of Azeroth.
We're not looking beyond Azeroth for the next chapter.
We're not moving forward to Outland and beyond.
Instead, we're looking deeper into the world players already fell in love with.
The Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, the places we've traveled through for decades.
We're revisiting mysteries that were never fully explored, stories that were never fully
told, regions that existed on the map, but never had the chance to become adventures
of their own.
We believe Azeroth still has secrets worth uncovering.
And that's what WoW Forever is, not expanding away from Azeroth but expanding deeper inside
of it. So before we show you exactly where that journey begins, I want to talk briefly
about the principles guiding every decision that we've made. First, let me get my slides
here. Sorry there. First, approachable and familiar. We believe the world should still
feel like classic. Every addition we make is measured against the spirit of the original
game, not whether it's new, not whether it's flashy, but whether it feels like it belongs.
That's why you won't find flying mounts.
You won't find level scaling.
And Azeroth should remain a dangerous world where preparation matters, communication matters,
and working together matters.
Yes.
Thank you.
We're not interested in making the game difficult simply for difficulty's sake.
When challenges are overcome, we want it to be because players prepared,
learned, cooperated, and succeeded together.
Now, second, world as the main character.
Yes.
We believe Azeroth itself should be one of the most important characters in the game.
characters in the game.
Leveling is just as important as end game.
Yes.
And we want to keep investing in the world itself
through new zones, new quests, new rewards,
and new adventures across all levels of play.
Not every story needs to be about saving the world.
Sometimes the most memorable stories
happen in a remote village, along a forgotten road,
or a corner of the map that you never expected to revisit.
Now, third, journey before destination.
We believe your effort should matter,
and it should continue to matter
while forever is designed as a long-term home.
We're not planning around future-level cap increases
that invalidate your accomplishments,
the professions you invest in matter,
the routes you choose matter,
and the gear you earn matters.
The experiences that you have with friends matter.
Our catch-up system is quite simple.
Play the game!
Ha!
Ha!
Ha!
Ha!
Level up, run dungeons, make friends,
explore the world, earn your rewards.
And finally, protect and nurture social experiences.
Many of our favorite memories from classic
happened because of other players,
because someone helped us complete a quest,
because a stranger joined our group,
because a dungeon run turned into a friendship.
We've had to be disciplined when adding convenience to the game
because every quality of life decision affects how players interact with one another.
Now, we want to create reasons for people to explore and adventure together,
and that's part of the philosophy behind new systems like camping.
And it's why every patch will include content for different kinds of players,
whether you enjoy solo adventures,
dungeons, raids, PVP, or something in between,
because the best adventures are the ones that we share.
So those pillars guide every decision that we make,
but what do they actually mean in practice?
Now, for us, it starts with Azeroth itself.
People often talk about vanilla Azeroth
as though it's a solved game,
as though every mystery has been answered,
every story has been told,
every corner of the world explored.
But when we look at Azeroth, we see something very different.
We see potential.
We see unfinished stories.
We see unexplored places.
We see regions players have been wondering about for decades.
The Gilneas, Mount Hyjal, Uldum,
the mountains north of Angora, I wonder what's up there.
The spaces that exist between the familiar parts of the world
and the possibilities don't stop there.
Forgotten kingdoms, Titan mysteries, the Emerald Dream,
the Caverns of Time,
countless adventures still waiting to be told in the vanilla world.
But every journey has to begin somewhere.
And when we started planning well forever,
we wanted to begin with places deeply rooted in the world,
players already know and love.
So let's take a look at where our adventure begins.
So today, we're introducing four new regions to Azeroth.
Yes, four new adventures built directly into the world of the Eastern kingdoms in Kalimdor,
because Azeroth is not finished growing, and this is how that growth begins.
So let's start with a place many of us have wondered about for more than 20 years, Mount
Highjoll!
Yes!
Ha-ha-ha!
We all know the story.
We know the story of Archimonde's defeat.
But what happened afterwards?
How did Highjoll recover?
How are the forests healing from the corruption?
How are the wild gods affected by the events atop the mountain?
And what dangers still remain?
The Mount Highjoll is a new end-game leveling zone
where players can finally journey through the dark whisper gorge
and explore one of Warcraft's most important locations
during a period of history that we've never really experienced before.
Now, you'll encounter new stories, rewards,
new reputations,
and both solo and group content
as you help shape the future of this recovering land.
And for players seeking a greater challenge,
Hydral also serves as the home
of one of our launch raids, Hydral Summit.
And...
And it serves as one of three entrances into one of our other raids, the Barrow Deeps.
Because some of Azeroth's greatest victories still have stories yet to tell.
But not every adventure begins with a famous landmark.
Some begin in places we've barely noticed at all.
If you've ever flown between Morgor and Desilis, you've probably seen a set of ancient ruins
passing far below, a small detail in the world,
a mystery hiding in plain sight.
Welcome to Schenderlars.
Here you'll meet Morden, evenshade,
and learn more about the Schenderlar,
the people whose history is deeply connected to Alptrophalas,
Dire Maul, and Prince Tortheldrin himself.
The players will also continue storylines
involving the Galkus and the Magrum Centaur tribes,
while discovering new reasons to visit dungeons
like Maradon and Razorfen Downs.
That's a great example of one of the things we love most about Azeroth.
Even the smallest corner of the world can become a truly memorable adventure.
Now, one of our core beliefs is that the journey matters,
and nowhere embodies that philosophy better than our new zone, the River Glades.
Located along the eastern coast of eastern kingdoms,
between Red Ridge, Burning Steps, the Badlands, and Swamp of Sorrow,
this place is big,
The River Glades is a major new leveling zone inspired by stories
that stretch all the way back to the earliest Warcraft games.
Years ago, human forces pursued retreating orcs to this region,
and when help never came,
many of those settlers were forced to remain behind
and build lives of their own on the frontier.
Generation later, the descendants still endure.
This is a rugged land of rivers, grasslands,
trade routes, struggling communities,
old grudges, and new opportunities.
Humans and orcs, ogres and gnolls,
doblins and murlocs all competing to survive
in a region where no one has it easy.
And that's what makes the River Blades special.
This isn't a story about saving Azeroth.
It's a story about living in Azeroth.
A spanning from the mid-30s to the mid-40s,
River Blades introduces more than 150 new quests,
content for both Horton Alliance players,
new reputations, new rewards,
and entirely new ways to progress through your leveling journey.
The players will also discover a neutral goblin port
that expands trade routes throughout the Eastern Kingdoms and beyond.
And for those of you looking for trouble,
you'll find Kroll Dock Stronghold,
an enormous outdoor dungeon
where a powerful ogre civilization is conducting some very questionable business.
And yes, we thought it might be nice to have another option,
besides running Scarlet Monastery for the 25th time.
Yes!
Yes!
So far, we've explored places tied to the familiar parts of Warcraft's history,
but Azeroth should still be able to surprise us.
Sometimes the greatest mystery isn't beyond the horizon.
Sometimes it's above us.
Welcome to Zephyrus Isle.
Thousands of years ago,
a group of high-born exiles
forged a pact with the elemental wind spirits,
and they built a civilization in the realm of Skywall.
This wasn't entirely without precedent.
Classic players may remember stories like Thunderfury
and Prince Thundaren,
where we first cut glimpses of the elemental powers beyond Azeroth itself.
Now, Zephyrus gives us an opportunity to expand on some of those ideas
while still creating something entirely new.
But the civilization of Zephyrus isn't troubled.
The air spirits that once protected these islands have vanished.
Ancient structures are beginning to fail,
communities are becoming isolated,
and the sky-born people are divided over what comes next.
Some seek answers from the wind spirits,
some wish to reclaim the arcane traditions of their ancestors,
and others have turned to darker powers.
The Zephyrus Isle serves as a brand new starting experience from levels one to twelve
and combines classic warcraft aesthetics
with elemental architecture inspired by sky wall itself.
And that is why we're introducing an entirely new playable race, the Skyborne.
Yes.
Now, the Skyborne are not a neutral race.
At character creation, players will choose whether the Skyborne joins the Horde or the
Alliance.
And while they share a common ancestry, they no longer share a common vision for the future.
The Horde-aligned Skyborne embrace stronger ties to elemental traditions and work closely
alongside the Earth and Ring, granting access to the Shaman class.
Now, Alliance Skyborne pursue the arcane legacy of their ancestors
and work alongside the Kirin Tor, granting access to the Mage class.
Now, both factions can play warriors, hunters, rogues, and druids,
including some brand new Skyborne druid forms created specifically for the race.
Yes.
And the Skyborne also feature new ratios,
customizations, voices, dances,
and a wide range of unique visual options.
And more importantly, the Skyborne represent
exactly the kind of story we want to tell in Well Forever.
Something new, something exciting,
and something that feels like it belongs in Azeroth.
Now, whether it's helping restore Hygel,
uncovering forgotten histories of Shendrolos,
building a future on the River Glades frontier,
or taking your first steps through the skies of Zephyrus.
These are only the first chapters of Wow! Forever.
This isn't a seasonal experiment.
This isn't a one-time expansion,
and it isn't the end of Azeroth's story.
It's a commitment, a promise,
to keep growing this world with new regions,
new mysteries, new adventures,
and new stories for years and years to come.
But a living world needs challenges.
new dungeons, new raids, new battlegrounds, new rewards,
and to show you what's waiting for adventurers brave enough to answer that call,
I would like to hand things over to Nora.
Thank you.
Greetings, adventurers!
I'd like to start by expressing just how proud I am of the team for making this dream a reality.
Like many of you watching right now, we've poured our hearts into World of Warcraft,
and it's an honor to be entrusted with this beloved world and this incredible legacy.
But ah, look at me, getting old sentimental when there are matters that require our attention.
There's adventure to be had all across Azeroth and of, well, let me just show you.
In the Alterac Mountains, a disruption has thrown the magical city of Dalaran into chaos.
The mages of the Curentor have erected a magical barrier over the city to conceal the restoration
efforts after the events of Warcraft 3, but as you can see, the barrier seems to be down.
Furthermore, I'm hearing all sorts of strange reports, enchantments backfiring, arcane constructs
going haywire, demonic energy has been running rampant, there are chats everywhere, uh, I guess
that part's normal. Anyway, far be it from me to imply that the all-powerful mages of the Kieran
toward, don't have the situation under control, but perhaps if you're willing to
brave the dangers, you could lend them a hand, especially if you're around levels
28, 33. There might be some magical artifacts in it for you, and besides,
there's a whole city to explore. So no, this isn't just a dungeon. Of course, the
optics of some ragtag group of adventurers helping out these powerful
ages would not go over well but I'm sure we can find some roundabout way to get
you into the city. Anyway, that's just scratching the surface. Let's turn our
sights closer to home.
The once great city of Lordaeron was devastated by Arthas and his scourge. The
Forsaken have been hard at work trying to restore the city. There are memories
here. Old family heirlooms keep sakes from loved ones who never made it out of
the city in time. The ruins of Lordaeron are treacherous, a scourge still lurk in its darkest
corners. But to make matters worse, we've heard reports that a necromancer has moved in, and
all signs point to an attack on another city. Honorable members of the Horde may choose to
take up arms and assist the Forsaken in reclaiming these ruins, ideally in the level 15-20-ish range,
while members of the Alliance, well, I can't imagine the Forsaken taking kindly to your presence
here, so you may need to find a way to sneak in.
But don't worry, Alliance.
We have something close to home for you, too.
The Dwarven Capital City of Iron Forge
is carved within the mountains of Dunmeroe,
and its mighty halls run deep.
Beneath the city proper lies the Hall of Thames,
a final resting place for the Dwarven monarchs of old.
This is a place that has been well-tended and, for the most
part, left undisturbed.
But if you guys can believe it, someone's
broken into the place. I suspect the dark irons. And perhaps if you're a member of
the Alliance, you might feel inspired to uproot these intruders. Although I'll
warn you, ghostly whispers echo these corridors. It's probably best to make
sure you're at least somewhere in the 13 to 18 level range. As for Horde, one
thing's for certain. The dwarves, I know, would never let some Horde waltz
right into their sacred burial chamber. I suppose if you're curious, you'll need
to find a way to sneak in or perhaps carve your way through.
But enough about home.
You're here for adventure.
Azeroth holds many secrets.
And it's no surprise that there would be no so many
archaeological dig sites scattered throughout the land.
These courageous enough to brave errant titan constructs
may set their sights on one dig site in particular.
Located in the wetlands, just about well-guards excavation,
you'll find a place trapped in tide.
Although we don't know much about it, but that's the point.
A strange mist has been floating down from the mountains
and flashing lights have been spotted on the horizon.
So there must be something up there.
You'll check it out, won't you?
I would make sure that you're in the levels 29.
There are 24 to 29 range, I'd say,
so you're prepared for what you might find.
I'm sure the explorers league might
be interested in those findings.
But if you're not a fan of swamps, I understand.
So how about something a bit more tropical?
These ancient troll ruins located off the coast
of Stranglethorne Vale have been submerged in waves
and in head of a dyed sea creatures for as long
as I can remember.
And I don't mean to alarm you, but those ruins
have suddenly risen out of the ocean.
You can see it just off the coast.
It appears to be some sort of city.
Well, one thing's for certain, we're
going to need somebody to go in and make sure nothing
de Ferris is going on in there.
I've heard reports that trolls and Naga have been spotted there,
and I thought I saw a pirate ship crashing into the place.
I wonder how they're doing.
It could be pretty dangerous,
so I'd make sure you're at least around levels 35 to 40
before venturing into that place.
Actually, I'm looking around the room, and y'all look pretty tough,
so if you want to head over to the World of Warcraft demo area,
you can check out the Dran City today right here on the show floor.
Now, some players may find this prison familiar,
and no, I'm not implying you're a bunch of criminals.
Although there may be a few devilish robes among you.
But no, this prison is famous
because it's rumored to be the place
where the Defias once held high-ranking nobles for ransom.
It was at one point even rumored to have held King Varian Rinn himself.
In the past, we were able to go visit this location,
but we couldn't actually go inside.
In forever, of course, now you can.
And it would be nice if you considered going down there to clear the place out.
There seemed to be some sort of conflict happening between the Defias and the Naga inside,
so now would be an opportune time to move.
You'll want to make sure you're ready to pull up a fight, though,
so, uh, a group's around level 48 to 53 should do it.
Ah, the Shaker's Terrace.
Where have I heard those words before?
In Ralph of Lich King Classic, I recall there was an old Titan facility deep within a shoal as our basin.
But were there others? What happened to them?
Anyway, perhaps one of our most treacherous locations yet, in the hills of Unboro Crater lies a place seemingly untouched by time.
I've heard it described as, I quote, a whole lot like Jurassic Park. Whatever that means.
There are old, tightened buildings scattered throughout the area,
wildlife running amok, beautiful power crystals scattered throughout,
and you guessed it, there must be some source of power here, right?
Well, if you're interested, perhaps you can go in and investigate
if you're levels 58 to 60 maybe.
Look, I don't know why you would want to venture into a stronghold,
crawling with ogres, but if you're into that sort of thing,
I've got the opportunity for you.
In the river glades, outrunners have been kidnapping folks,
and I've heard several ransackings have occurred within the region.
Sturdy adventurers in the level 40 to 55 range could potentially put up a fight
and end the ogre's mischief in the region, but be warned,
in the twilight hours of the night, I've heard weird chanting coming from the place.
Could it be cultists?
But back to nature.
In times past, I could have sworn...
I remember standing before a gate in Azhara and wondered what it was on the underside.
I tell you, but if you're around levels 55 to 60, you might as well go check it out for
yourself.
A great furbolg city lies within, but if you're familiar with the furbolg's plight, well,
I suspect they might be struggling to save off some sort of corruption.
It could be very dangerous.
The tunnels leading into Black Maw Hold run deep and wind far into the mountain.
In fact, should you decide to explore these tunnels,
you might find yourself in an entirely different kind of danger,
which brings us to our first raid.
To the Nidals, the Barrow Deep is a sacred place.
While there may be a variety of Barrow Dens scattered throughout the land,
it is said that the winding tunnels
lead to one pivotal location we call the Barrow Deep.
None truly know how far or how deep these tunnels run, but it must be massive.
The Night Elves hold some of their most dangerous prisoners in this location.
In fact, Rimmer has it.
An infamous demon hunter was once kept here.
Perhaps you'll get to see his prison.
The Night Elves are hesitant to let anyone in, including allies, but I've heard that,
Like the furbolves of Black Maw Hold, they may be dealing with some sort of corruption.
But these dangers are no joke.
In fact, if I were you, I'd send no less than 10 of my greatest adventurers.
But we've got more danger in store.
At the Battle for Mount Hyjal, Malfurion Stormrage chose to sacrifice the power sustaining the
Night Elves' immortality for a chance to defeat Legion Commander Archimonde.
It worked, but I mean, holy smokes,
coming to terms with losing one's immortality
mustn't be easy, and there must be some
who disagreed with his decision, right?
Anyway, fast forward to today,
and we're hearing reports that someone or something
has been draining the power from the land
surrounding the Pagel Summit.
Now, like the Barrow-Deeps, you'll want to be prepared.
If you were to send, say, 20 of your finest,
I'd say you'd have a reasonable chance of surviving.
This is by far our largest raid in WoW forever.
Beautiful snowy peaks tower over the area,
a raging river carves a path through ancient elven ruins.
The whispering of ghosts from the third war can be heard.
There's plenty of adventure to be had
and perhaps plenty of power to be had as well.
Legendary power.
But this is world of warcraft
and tension is at an all-time high between the Horde and the Alliance.
Rest assured, you'll get to duke it out in the classic battlegrounds you've always known and loved,
but we have something more for you.
Off the coast of Kalimdor lies the Darkspear Islands,
a strategic location for those seeking to gain an upper hand in the conflict.
This is a 15 versus 15 battleground that follows the same rule set as Eye of the Storm.
If you want to win, you'll need to control strategic positions throughout the islands.
The catch is that this battleground features a rapybasin-style capture points.
You'll need to interact with a flag, then stand to defend it to secure that location.
Or, you guessed it, you'll be joining the Dark Spear Trolls as they fight to eradicate the Alliance from their islands.
An Alliance, you are to report to the Theramore Expeditionary Force for deployment.
We've also spent a lot of time thinking about classes back in 2005 and 2006.
The class team modestly redesigned several of the talent trees such as priests,
mage, hunter, druid.
They made, the changes they made back then weren't really about making
every class equally good at everything.
Rather, they wanted each class to feel unique.
They wanted to give us a reason to bring
each class on our next adventure.
The changes we've made in classes and while forever follow that same spirit.
We want to cover gaps where they exist, but we don't want to erase what makes each class
unique.
For example, Paladins, there's a new seal that allows you to tank a bit more effectively.
If healing's your jam, you might find talents that enable you to do a bit, just a bit, of
group healing.
The threat, Paladins, I don't know.
Maybe now's your time to shine.
We've moved away from talents
that simply give you small incremental improvements
and it instead tried to give you talents that you notice.
You may find yourself in situations
where you're making real meaningful trade-offs
depending on how you want to build your character.
But that's not all.
WoW Forever is huge and you've got hundreds
of brand new items to look forward to,
including all sorts of really fun and exciting on-use and on-equip effects.
For example, check out this sharpened cutlery I found backstage,
which you could equip as your farm weapon.
And possibly related, we have this grave robber's shovel for, uh, uh,
you know, when you want to dig a grave.
Anyway, we've gone through and made a variety of updates
and existing items and rewards throughout the games.
Check out the title charm, now super effective against certain sea dwellers,
and Whitemane's Chippewa, which has an increased healing and damage done
alongside a reduction in the past time of resurrection spells.
Now, let me touch on race abilities in WoW Forever.
We want to give you reasons to want to spin up a new character
and embark on a new journey,
which is why we've done a pass over race abilities
to make them feel more distinct, more unique,
such that each race has something special to bring
that other races do not.
You can see a sneak peek of a few of our upcoming racial passives,
a 5% increase of damage dealt against beasts if you're a dwarf,
and a 5% chance to drain health from your target if you're undead.
But I highly encourage you to check out tomorrow's
Wow Forever Deep Dive panel,
where my friends will go into a lot more detail
on what I've teased today.
But I'm an introvert,
and it's time for me to crawl back into the shadows from whence I came,
so I'm going to go ahead and hand things off
to our wonderful production director, Play Stone, who'll share even more fun and exciting
WoW Forever updates.
Thanks, Nora.
And hello, BlizzCon!
My name is Clay Stone, and I'm the Associate Production
Director on the WoW Classic and WoW Forever team.
So we've talked a lot about things you might be expecting.
But let's take a minute and talk about some things
perhaps you weren't expecting.
Let's start with our rendering updates.
You got to see a bit of this in our gameplay trailer during the opening ceremony, and admittedly, we went pretty hard.
Not every zone is going to be set at sunrise or sunset all the time.
But I want to make a bold, controversial statement.
We believe WoW Classics Art Style is timeless, which is why our focus was not on changing the game art,
but on small ways we could push specifically things like the environmental effects.
such as the way rivers now flow in Elwynn Forest or the way the fog rolls into
duskwood at night or the way the moonlight now breaks through the leaves of
the trees in Ashenvale. It's the same original Azeroth that players fell in
love with all those years ago with just a few small but powerful effects updates to
make it more immersive than ever. Next, let's talk camping. So in addition to the new profession's
content arriving elsewhere in Wild Forever, with camping, we are doubling down on trade
skills. Almost anywhere in the open world, players can craft a campsite. Other adventurers
players can stop by, stay a while, and use their trade skills to craft something for
the campsite, granting everyone there a specific buff.
When we think about our core pillars, and nurturing and protecting social experiences,
this is one of those things we're talking about.
And because players need to sit there for a moment before they gain any buffs, maybe,
Just maybe they just might talk to each other.
Legacy system.
If camping is us doubling down on trade skills and community, WoWForever's new legacy system
will see us tripling down on an element of classic that is only found in classic.
a one to 60 leveling journey.
For as epic as Endgame is, and I promise you,
wow, forever's Endgame is epic,
we know that there are some players
who just love the classic leveling journey.
Although the legacy system benefits everyone,
it very much aids players who love to run alts
as they unlock new perks across their alts
by achieving new goals on each new leveling journey.
We are really excited about this one
and how well it fits in the classic
wild design philosophy.
Now, I'd like to switch gears and talk about the community.
And if there's one thing I've learned in my time
as part of this community,
it's that players love to debate what is and is not classic.
Players discuss in social in forums and even make polls
And if there's one thing every player agrees on it's what is classic plus
When I took this survey, I was like, oh my gosh. Yes
Blizzard is
Gonna see this and we're gonna be able to have proof and say look this is what we want blizzard now
you can do it. In reality, after looking at this data, it's like, it's the exact opposite
of what I thought. It's the exact, it's the exact, oh my gosh, like it's literally proving
that like nobody knows what they want. Like that's hilarious, bro.
So since we're all in agreement on what we want,
Let's talk Transmog.
Now, some of you are saying,
yes, finally, this is my moment, I feel seen.
But we know, some of you are saying,
Transmog? Not in my classic plus.
We say, is it too much to ask for both?
In WoW Forever, Transmog is entirely opt-in.
If you want to turn it on, it's on, and everyone you see in the world can look their very best.
But for classic players, especially those of us who enjoy world PvP, many of us want
to see other players for who they truly are and what they've accomplished.
So, turn it off, and it's Clown Suits for Everyone.
Throughout the world, you decide there is a lot more to learn about the classic modifications
we've made to this system for those who choose to use it.
by tomorrow's deep dive panel to learn a lot more about this, as well as the camping
and legacy systems, and much more.
For now, let me move on to another absolutely not at all controversial topic, character
models.
Now, many players enjoy WoW's newer HD character models, but many of us also feel that Classics
ArtSale is timeless, as I said before, and deserves to be preserved.
is why we've made it completely toggleable, game-wide.
Your character, the NPCs, other player characters together,
unified in either HD or SD.
For fellow classic players, that means
you get to see all the beloved original races rendered
in their glorious original SD designs.
And for those of you who prefer a more modern aesthetic,
you can go with the modern HD designs.
You choose what you see.
Oh, and there is one more thing.
We feel like classics animations are just as important
as its art style.
Here, you will see a newer, modern HD Dwarf
running with its modern animation sets.
Now let me show you that same HD Dwarf running
while attached to the classic animation sets.
I am so proud to announce that we have gone back and painstakingly restored the classic
animations you know and love across the game's HD character models.
No bouncy dwarves in the skin.
So let's see.
about a few new zones, the new race, nine new dungeons, two new raids, classes, systems,
but friends, this is only a glimpse of WoW Forever. We simply don't have enough time
to talk about new professions content, new reputations, all the new itemization
rewards updates blowing up much of the old meta, the new PVP system, our first
new legendary, our change to riding skill to preserve that classic, classic moment when
you finally earn your right to ride your first mount, our official support of game pads for
players who prefer to play using controllers, playable this weekend on the show floor in
an in development state by the way, and of course, the integration of previously unfinished
and unused vanilla WoW content, but that's all now.
I want to take a second to talk about where we're going.
We have learned a lot since Season of Discovery, including the benefits of a strong roadmap,
which is why we are building Well Forever in the way it was originally conceived back
in the early 2000s, but with everything we've learned for the past 25 years.
A fast-paced production for a slow-paced game, which will allow us to deliver where we go
from here.
We have big plans for the coming months.
You will see new raids unlock on December 9th, followed by even more new raids, new
dungeons, PvP updates, world content, and so much more, all in addition to the
original vanilla wow content. And this includes new quests throughout the
leveling 1 through 60 journey as we add to this horizontally expanding evergreen
classic Azeroth.
And I want to take a second to briefly point to that major updates box right there in summer
at the far end.
It's a few words there that say revamped iconic raid.
There's been a lot of speculation about when this game could take place, which is why I
want to reiterate that this game takes place at the beginning of World of Warcraft and
tells stories authentic to that time period.
the original iconic raids that you know and love
have not opened yet.
And we're excited for you to rediscover them in the future.
But friends, this is just a taste of the year ahead,
and not even a peak at where we're
planning to go beyond this.
However big you think this game is,
based on what you've seen so far,
I promise you it is so much bigger than that.
Our ambition is mighty, but most importantly,
We have room to pivot based on community feedback.
We are building this game with you, and we are not just building for today, but for something
that lasts.
And nothing is off the table, not even a new class.
Looking back to this real map, you may have noticed there's a big gap right there, right
around the winter time frame.
Let's discuss that.
But first, I want to take a second to talk about a picture, a picture that was framed
and has hung on my wall at Blizzard since 2023.
Hardcore represented a turning point for us as a team.
We had tried a few things before it, and as Ian covered, we've absolutely tried new things
since.
Hardcore represented the moment when Blizzard and the community came together and showed
not only why World of Warcraft is one of the greatest games ever made, but why that original
adventure still holds so much promise for where we could go in the future.
Which is why I'm also so proud to announce that Hardcore will be coming to Wild Forever
as well.
Please check out the Hardcore panel tomorrow for a look at WoW Forever Hardcore.
To me, Hardcore was the start of a promise.
And WoW Forever is not some experimental seasonal realm nor some recreation of where we've already
been. Wow Forever as a name and a logo represents a promise. And you happen to
pick up the collector's edition, we hope you love the logo on the box. And when
you open that box, we hope you love it on the game box. And when you see what
else is inside that box, we hope you love, we hope you love your very own
Dwarf and Bear statue, which signifies where this all began, not just with hardcore, but
also way back in November of 2004.
On behalf of the World Classic team and the entire World of Warcraft team, thank you.
When I started on Classic, our dream was to get here.
We are here because of you.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for your feedback, thank you for believing in this dream.
I'll see you in-game on November 4th, beta starts this Thursday, and you can play the
demo here today.
Have a great list, everyone.
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See what's next for the legendary RTS
with a look at Warcraft 3, Forsaken Kingdom.
Hello again.
Yeah, it is pretty surreal to be up here in the year 2026, talking not about World of Warcraft,
but about Warcraft 3.
Who would have found that? Not on many bingo cards.
Playing War 3 in my dorm room is where I personally fell in love with this world and these characters.
Of course, it goes all the way back to the 90s, but War 3 fleshed out this world and this franchise
in a way that really set the stage for everything to follow.
The few dozen hours of gameplay in those campaigns
laid the foundation for thousands and thousands of hours
and decades of World of Warcraft,
the world, the factions, and of course,
epic characters like Arthas and Illidan.
But of course, there were some gaps in that narrative.
World of Warcraft picked up around four in-world years
after the Battle of Mount Hygel.
And a lot happened in that time.
If you were a Warcraft 3 player
and then you logged into WoW,
You'd seen Lordaeron fall, of course, in that epic fashion, but in WoW suddenly it was the
undercity, and the nearby lands were the plague lands, occupied and ravaged by the scourge.
Warcraft III Forsaking Kingdom is our chance to tell the story of how that transformation
came to pass.
As Holly mentioned earlier, we have a team that's been working hard on War3 over the
last few years to follow through on the commitment, on the promise we made with Reforged.
Warcraft 3 has given World of Warcraft so much, and we are so excited to be in a position to give a little bit back now.
Without further ado, let me get out of the way and let you hear all about the game.
It's my pleasure to introduce the project lead on Warcraft 3 for Saking Kingdom, Brad Chen.
Hi, everyone. My name is Brad, and I'm a long-time viewer, but a first-time presenter.
The year was 2004, and World of Warcraft had just came out.
I was 15 years old at the time, and I had to play this game.
Why?
Because I love the original Warcraft 3 campaign.
That's how I fell in love with the game.
That's why I still play this game till this very day.
So, I got the game, and the first thing I did,
the first thing, the only thing I could think about
was this throne room.
It was the only thing that was on my mind,
and I had to check it out.
I had to see what happened to this place post-scouraging.
You know, that iconic cinematic,
Arctis returns, that iconic throne room.
So, I immediately rolled a human character.
And I know, I know, just stay with me now.
I rushed through all my early quests,
and then I finally got to the capital.
And I realized, wait a second, this doesn't look right.
Was this Lordaeron?
No, it wasn't.
It was Stormwind, dull, obviously.
So, fast forward, I re-rolled my character.
I picked an undead this time,
spotting trish-ball glaives.
Okay, this looks familiar.
I rushed through the early quest, killed all the zombies,
and then I finally see those techs.
Discovered ruins of Lordaeron.
Cool, we made it.
So I immediately went to the throne room
and I was standing in awe.
My level five undead mage,
and I remembered, wow,
Arthas was actually in this room.
He actually killed his father right here.
And I was like, wow, for the first time,
I really am in the world of warcraft, nod nod.
But after a while, I took a minute, that was done.
Started wandering around, and I started asking myself,
Hey, wait a second. This whole area looks kind of different.
Like, how did this happen?
Like, there's an elevator here, there's an undercity.
Was there a Warcraft 3 campaign that I missed?
Some sort of bonus campaign?
At the time, I didn't realize that there was a four-year time
skip between Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft.
I think it was partially because I was 15,
and my frontal lobe hadn't fully developed.
I'm not sure if it still has,
but that's neither here or there.
That's not the point.
But the question has always stuck with me.
How did the undercity become what it is in WoW today?
How did we go from ruined human kingdom
to new capital of the First Safety?
Well, wait no more.
So, the Warcraft III Reforged Forsaking Kingdom is a brand new campaign of a never-told-before
story that consists of not only one, but two campaigns.
A prologue campaign called The Last Days of Lordaeron, and our main campaign called The
Forsaking Kingdom.
This campaign will take place between the four-year gap between Warcraft 3 and World
of Warcraft.
This follows the infamous events of when Arthas returns to Lordaeron and to when Sylvanas
and her forsaken forces join the horde.
This campaign will have around 30 hours of gameplay and about one hour of in-game cinematics,
so it's a pretty chunky experience.
But that's not the only thing we're doing.
Alongside our new campaign, we are releasing patch 3.0,
which adds a new definitive edition graphics
for all existing record users.
And did I mention that this is all available today?
And also, if you want to play it right here right now,
we have 100 PCs set up in the classic stage in Hall A.
So how about it?
So before I get into this, I need
to give a slight spoiler warning for the people who
have not played Warcraft 3 before.
I'll try to keep it as non-spoilery as possible.
But if you never checked out Warcraft 3 in the last 23 years,
it might be a good time note.
It might be a great time to pick it up now.
So in order to really tell the story of how the under city came to be,
we really have to show what happened to the capital of Lordaeron and what
happened post-Arthis return.
In this four mission prologue,
you will follow the events of the scourging of Lordaeron,
but from the point of view of the city guard,
the prologue essentially picks up right when Arthis returns.
You remember, in those original cinematics, you see those city guards right there, right
behind you in this little picture.
You get to play right them.
You get to play as them.
And does anyone remember that iconic cinematic where, what are you doing, my son?
Succeeding you.
You will literally be right there.
But you also revisit other locations, like not only the capital, but you will be the
sewers, pre-undercity, anderhall, and return to Stratholme host-colour.
Something we found really interesting that we wanted to explore was this concept of perspective.
How did the citizens react to their prints portraying them?
Look, we all know what happened from Arthas and the point of view of the scourge,
but we never see it from the human's point of view.
We know, as a player, Arthas descends to the dam, spoilers alert,
his interactions with Kel'Thuzad,
and him getting literally rage-vated by Maldanus,
which led to the infamous calling of Strathvom
to forever seal his fate
when he picked up the Runeblade Frostmour.
But to those people, they don't know,
and we want to explore how those players react.
For them, their prince is just returning.
It's just another day.
But we know it's not just another day.
We know there's no tomorrow.
We know that no human will ever inhabit this kingdom, ever again.
And it really is the absolute fall of a civilization.
Now, can you imagine being a blacksmith on that day?
He's like, oh, stub my finger, man.
This day couldn't get any worse.
Well, rather, it gets worse.
So after you completed this prologue,
we pick up with our main campaign, the Forsaking Kingdom.
Now, this isn't a linear campaign.
It's more like a soft, open-world RPG.
Does anyone remember our boy, Rex R?
Yeah, you remember?
Yeah, do you remember?
You remember?
You remember?
I remember.
Yeah, let's give a shout out for our boy, Rexar here.
Come on, let's make some noise.
Yeah, so this story isn't about Rexar, but it is based
on the original Rexar campaign and what it was,
back when it released as a DLC in the Throne and Throne back
in 2003.
Only this time, instead of the founding of Durotar,
we're exploring the creation of the under city.
What we did was double down on what
made the RECSAR campaign so great,
which is all the cool items and the leveling
that you did on the way.
In this Forsaking Kingdom campaign,
we have added an improved inventory system
and talent management system.
So you can progress the campaign,
equip different items, spec out your hero
with different talents, and progress however you want to play.
And for all the map makers back home,
this is all done natively in our World Editor,
So, how about it?
Now, from a story perspective, there's a lot to unpack here,
but you'll ultimately learn, step by step,
how the undercity came to be.
It's culture.
Why is the water green?
And how come the Scourge never retook Lordaeron
at the start of classic WoW?
Why were they relegated to the playgrounds?
I mentioned earlier about the concept
of losing your home forever in the prologue.
Another interesting concept that we wanted to explore was,
what do you do when you realize that you have a second chance,
so to speak?
What do you do with that second chance
when you have the memories of your past life?
And as the memories, and you also have the memories
being a mindless ghoul for the Scourge,
bounded by the Lich King,
and you have to act against your own free will.
How do you come back from that?
Can you come back from that?
How do you move on?
I know this is gonna sound pretty cliche,
but for some people, that they really have to die
before they truly started living,
Is it really only in death that they find life?
So without getting into super squirrely territory,
this is in essence a story of what does one have to do
when they have to start over?
When they have literally lost everything and everyone.
How do they adapt to a new home?
How do they adapt to a new family, community?
How does one rebuild?
Can they?
This is where the Forsaken are.
And every Forsaken has to go through this,
and they have to ask themselves that very question
when they become awake, so to speak.
So in this story, we really go deep in discovering
what's the culture for the everyday Forsaken citizen?
How does the under city run every day?
How was Brill even built?
The more you play, the more you'll discover
what this forsaking kingdom is all about.
We have two brand new characters
that we are introducing for the very first time.
Garrick Banderian, a newly risen forsaken warrior
in Dark Ranger Anya.
We follow them closely as we see the transformation
of the undercity as we know it today in Wild Classic.
But we also have a few returning characters,
such as the Banshee Queen herself, Sylvanas,
Futress, Vera Mathriss,
who are primary quest givers and NPCs.
We also have the Scarlet Crusade at the height of their power
with characters like Sally Whitemayne and Renate Mulvray.
And last but not least, we have appearances
appearances from the OG baddies, Death Knight Arthas,
Calthazod, Rass Frost Whisper, Baron Rivendare,
and Nat Soramas.
Oh, one more thing.
You know that new class in WALF, the Forsaken Paladin?
Well, you get to see his origins in this campaign,
and you get to see the events of the Forsaken Kingdom
will actually carry you over to wow forever.
And so for the first time in a long time,
you can really see the connecting tissues
between these two gates.
There was supposed to be a slide there,
but we'll just keep going.
And so, the band of vision,
the big question I think most people are watching
are gonna ask is what graphics were these made on?
Let's just say Reforge has a complicated history.
And early in development, we asked ourselves,
what did we want to do in classic or in Reforge?
And ultimately, the answer was neither.
And so in order to truly tell a brand new story
in Warcraft 3, we really need to go beyond these two paths.
So we decided to make a completely brand new graphics mode
called the definitive edition,
which essentially captures the original Warcraft 3 spirit
with a much higher fidelity.
Not only is this campaign going to be in D,
but we've also remade over 600 units,
and this will be free as a free addition
to everyone who already owns Reforge.
But, yeah, it's all for you.
But let me walk you through the high level of how he was created for this campaign.
So on the screen here, this is one of the first levels we worked on, the throne room
of Lordaeron.
And yeah, I know I keep going back to that, because it's so cool.
And yeah, look at this.
It's classic, Warcraft 3, in all its glory, in its beloved and iconic art style.
But we wanted to push the new visuals to experience this for a new era.
So long story short, we had some engine improvements, lighting shadows, some magic, spirit fingers,
and this is what it looks like.
Light.
I think it looks pretty, pretty good.
And for the multiplayer crowd, I think it's just better
that I show you some comparison shots.
So this is going to be kind of like B
at the optometrist for the second.
I'm going to show you slide A, which is going to be classic,
and slide B, which is going to be DE.
So let's start with human.
So slide A, human, classic, slide B.
Let's go and, yeah, yeah, you can plop them, yeah,
you can plop them out, yeah, hell yeah.
Let's go back, let's just go back a second,
let's go back to slide A, just to do a quick comparison
shot, and now let's go back to B.
That's pretty good.
Let's do orcs.
Orcs, plastic orcs, everyone loves orcs.
And let's go B.
Pretty good.
Let's go back to A and B.
I guess we're already halfway here,
so let's just steal the night elves and undead then.
So night elves, A. Show me B. Show me A. Show me
be just a little flippity-floppity and let's do the last but not least undead.
El Clasico and Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh from row B.
One more time let's go A and let's go B. Cool.
Ultimately, it's up to you, whatever you prefer.
If you want to keep playing classic graphics, you can.
If you want to play this new DE mode, you can.
We still support all cross functionality,
so play whatever you want.
Oh yeah, I also mentioned,
you know how we are going to discover the origins
of the Forsaken Paladin?
Well, for you multiplayer folks,
We are adding the Forsaken Paladin as a brand-new Tavern Hero.
This will be the first new Tavern Hero in over 20 years.
Fun fact, the last hero that was released
was the Fire Lord, Goblin Tinker, and the Alchemist
back in September 20th in 2004, roughly right before when World
of Warcraft came out.
It's all connected.
What we also made a classic version of him,
so players that want to play classic, reforge or defend of addition,
you'll all be able to play him for free.
Now, he might be OP, I can't confirm or deny,
but if you want to see him in live action,
you can check him out during the War 3 matches,
during the Classic Cup tournament that's happening today in Hall A,
so you'll be able to see him in full force.
If you want to know more about the Forsaken Paladin,
we'll be covering this kit doing a deep dive panel
on the classic stage in Hall A later today.
So before I wrap,
I just want to close on a personal note.
This is, like I said,
this is my first BlizzCon.
To be completely blunt,
I didn't think I was going to be here.
I have worked on a lot of RTS games in my career,
but to be able to work on a Blizzard RTS, sheesh.
I thought that time had passed me by, but to the contrary, we just made a new campaign
for Warcraft 3 in 2026.
And when I say we, I don't mean just me and Blizzard, I mean all of you.
You all did this.
You all made this happen.
Everyone's standing, sitting right here.
You made this happen.
Everyone in this convention, you made this happen.
Everyone watch you at home.
You made this happen.
Yes.
You over there.
Yes.
You in the back.
Not you.
I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
We're just telling jokes here.
good time. But just think about that for a second. Let that sentence sit in with you.
How amazing, how ridiculous, how redonkulous is that 23 years later? And look, for some
of you, this is just a game. All good. But for others, like myself, it's not. It's more
More than that, we all have different perspectives of what warcraft means to us and how it's
affected our lives up until this point, but the point is it has meaning to all of us.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is to be able to work on something like Warcraft 3
that means so much to so many people, it truly is an honor.
And I want to acknowledge that we wouldn't be here.
I would not be here standing right here in front of you without all of you.
We wouldn't be doing any of this without you.
So do the people still play in these games for all these years that don't want to play
anything else?
We got you.
Thank you so much for the support throughout the years.
never giving up, because we don't want to give up either.
I don't want to give up either.
So as long as you keep playing and keep showing up, we will too.
Never surrender, never give up.
Brrrr!
So how about we make this memorable?
How about a quick picture to celebrate the forsaking kingdom, the first new Warcraft
3 campaign in over 23 years, and not just the future of Warcraft, but to this phenomenal
community?
Let me get my phone out.
It's down here.
Okay, so when I say war, you say crowd.
War.
War.
Let's do one more.
Okay.
When I say war, you say crowd.
War.
War.
Hell yeah.
Thank you everyone again, and remember, this is all available right now.
If you want to know more, the Forsaken Kingdom deep-dive panel will be at the Classic Stage
later today, and be sure to see all the new graphics and the new hero during the Classic
Cup.
Thank you so much.
Peace!
Plus commas brought to you by MSI.
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I
Oh
Let's go.
This video is brought to you by Fanta,
lit-smacking deliciousness.
Want to Fanta?
Nintendo Switch 2, NVIDIA GeForce RTX, Game Changer.
The future of Diablo begins now.
Hosted by Blizzard president, Johanna Farris.
Hello, BlizzCon, my name is Johanna, and today we are here to discuss a monumental moment
for the Diablo franchise, and the unveiling of Diablo 5.
We have some pretty incredible developers
behind this game joining us today.
So let's first just start with some introductions.
Hello, everybody.
My name is Matt, and I'm the executive producer on Diablo 5.
I'm super excited to be here, and grateful for the opportunity.
Thank you.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Tiffany.
I'm the senior production director on Diablo 5.
I've had the awesome opportunity to work with both Joe and John on Diablo 3 and Diablo 4,
and we got the team back together to work on Diablo 5.
Hi everyone, I'm Joe.
Thank you.
I'm Senior Game Director on Diablo 5, and it's great to see everyone.
It feels like it's been a while.
Hi, I'm Jennifer. I'm fairly new to Diablo, but I have been writing games for the past 20 years, mostly dark fantasy.
So I was so stoked to be able to jump into the eternal conflict as narrative director on Diablo 5.
The newest weapon on our arsenal.
Hello BlizzCon!
I'm so happy to be back Tiffany. I'm the senior art director on Diablo and
Tiffany last time we were on stage together was way back in 2019 when we
didn't have Diablo 4 and I'm really happy to be back here today so that we
are hard at work on Diablo 5. Awesome. Thanks everyone and as a Diablo player
and fan I'm psyched and honored to be on the stage with all of you so let's get
into it. Joe, break it down for us. What does the team want to share with players today?
Yeah, the panel is going to cover a lot of ground. I'm going to talk about story, world,
some classes, and a bit about gameplay, and even a little bit about itemization.
But before we dive in further, let's take another look at the teaser.
The angels were supposed to save us.
What's a void from the leaders and more?
Bring speed!
Sanctuary.
It's peace.
The Lord of Terror has returned.
Wow.
So much to unpack.
West March is definitely burning and it seems like something's gone terribly wrong.
So what story are you trying to tell here?
Yeah, we're a long way from the campfire.
From its comfort and hope.
These are the fires of Diablo.
Sanctuary has been destroyed.
Diablo has won.
And Matt, I'm curious, when building the next era,
what has guided you and the team on this?
Yeah, so when we started talking about
what's the next era Diablo needs to look like
and what do we wanna do with it,
we really started the conversation thinking about players,
the whole reason we're here is to make games
that our players want to play.
And for Diablo, after 30 years,
we've accumulated a very large player base
with lots of different wants and needs from a Diablo game.
And it's important then when we think about
what we wanna build and the ambitions we have for the game
that we're making a Diablo game
that is for every type of Diablo player.
Whether that's somebody who is here for the story
and the vibes and the dark fantasy
or somebody who is required to grind bosses
and find loot and min-max their build
and kind of perfect their character.
And that kind of everybody who falls in between.
And so when we started talking about breaking ground
on the next Diablo experience, we really started there.
We were looking for themes across our player groups,
how players cluster together into different groups
so that when we're talking about the features
and the content and the ideas for what we want to build,
we can always kind of anchor it back on
which type of Diablo player is this part of the game most for.
So after we started getting through that phase
of breaking down and understanding our players,
We spent a lot of time looking at Diablo 4 and thinking about what worked really well
about that game, how it's grown over the years in response to player feedback, and where
we had ambitions to try something new and bring fresh ideas to the world of Diablo.
And it was that conversation that led us to start thinking about, you know, do we do this
as an expansion to Diablo 4 or do we do this as a sequel?
allows us to do something really special to a game of long-standing game like
Diablo where we can get in and really change the fundamentals of what the
game is and that's really hard to do when you're building on top of a game
that's been around for several years, has had several expansions and seasons,
making those types of fundamental changes to what the game is and how it's
structured that we felt were really necessary to chase the ambition that we
had for the next phase of Diablo. We really needed to build a new game and
And of course, we want to bring Diablo back.
We've all been hungry for seeing him represented in a Diablo game
for the first time in a long time.
And we need to do him justice, right?
Like Mephisto and Lilith are these epic characters
with great stories and lots of depth to who they are
and how they operate in the world of the sanctuary.
And Diablo deserves that and more.
And-
Tell the truth, Matt.
Yes.
None of us wanted to tell Diablo.
Okay, fine.
game and he doesn't. He caught me. We really didn't want to tell Diablo no. So, you know, it became clear to us pretty early on that to really do justice for what, you know, players want out of a Diablo game, to give Diablo a game that, you know, he deserves to really tell the story of Diablo, we needed to do a sequel. So once we started, you know, kind of wrapping your heads around the sequel, everything kind of flowed from there.
That's great. And Jennifer, I'm curious, how did the narrative team approach crafting
the story worthy of this Lord of Terror?
So like Matt was saying, once we decided that this game was going to bring Diablo back,
we knew we had to do it right. He couldn't just be a final boss. He needs to be the force
that's shaping this game from its opening moments. And that's how we decided that this
time you're not scrambling to protect sanctuary before Diablo can rise and take it
over because let's be honest everybody in this room has been doing that for the past 30 years right
so this time other heroes rose up to try to stop Diablo and they failed and you're living in the
aftermath of what they failed to prevent you're living the world that all of the other Diablo games
were trying to prevent from happening and john how did you and the team approach the art direction
for this story.
Yeah, I think that the scene of the crucified angels
in front of the burning spires of West March,
I mean, I think this really sets the stakes for the world.
You know, the tone, the atmosphere,
you know, we're really doubling down on darkness
and what this means for the art team is really
you get to explore all of what we learn from Diablo IV
and expand on even further.
You know, and that desolation that we're going to see in the world
is really the setting for the survivors of this story.
And I think that really complements what Jennifer and her team are doing.
Yeah, the flip side of making sanctuary so dark of trying to double down on this darkness
of Diablo winning and this apocalyptic setting is we still need to make sanctuary a place
that's worth defending.
We need to have it be a place that you want to save.
And so we need to show you that what you did in defeating Mephisto, it worked.
There was a golden age of sanctuary.
There was a time where sanctuary was a better place than we've ever seen it.
And you could make it that again if you can beat the odds and defeat Diablo this time.
And we want to pull back the curtain on the eternal conflict and show you a sanctuary
that's caught between Diablo's aggression and the almost equally damaging indifference
of the heavens.
And we're going to let you make humanity a player in this.
We're going to let you find an ally among the angels and even turn the powers of hell
back against itself.
So what can you tell us about Diablo himself?
What's he like in V5?
Well, he's had some great lines.
Lines like, not even depth can save you from me.
I was going to do the voice, but people said no.
You've got to cut you off there, Joe.
No voices.
They said they would cut my mic.
But Diablo has a lot more to say in this game.
a fully developed character. You know in the past he's loomed over the story and
the confrontation but he really shapes Diablo 5's story from the beginning.
Yeah like Jennifer and Joe have been saying for 30 years we've been trying
to stop Diablo from taking over Sanctuary but in Diablo 5 that battle is
finished Diablo has won and so the first for the first time we get to explore the
question of what is it like in the world of Sanctuary after he's already taken over.
And when we started exploring his character, well, we love a good morally gray character
on the Diablo team. One that begs the question of, wait, hold on, like, does this person actually
have a point? Are they right? It's always a good debate. And, you know, Blizzard has
created some incredible ones, Sylvanas, Lilith. So it's natural for us to lean in that direction
when we first started working on Diablo,
but pretty quickly we kept arriving at the same conclusion.
Diablo is Diablo, he's the Lord of the Herald.
He's not redeemable, he's not misunderstood,
and that gave us a lot of clarity.
And so the question now becomes, is he right?
But what happens now that he's won?
And in Sanctuary, in this time in Diablo V,
you're not exploring that through the stories of characters
that you're running into, you as the Air West Marsh,
you were experiencing that firsthand,
and it's really pretty terrifying.
Yeah, so I love Lord of Hatred.
Did anybody else here love Lord of Hatred?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought the team did a fantastic job with that,
and I think the thing that made it so amazing
to experience was the depth of that relationship
that you get to build with Lilith and with Mephisto.
By that point in the story, you're not just a wanderer anymore,
you are central to the story of these eternal characters.
And so we wanted to build that into Diablo 5
from the very beginning.
You're going to have a unique bond with Diablo
that you find out over the course of the game
why and how it came to be.
And that's what puts you in a unique position
of being able to face him.
You have unique insight into him,
but also a unique vulnerability to what he can do to you.
And that lets you basically spend the game
defining yourself in opposition to the Lord of Terror.
Can you resist his influence?
Can you turn his powers against him?
That's what the story and the gameplay
are gonna let you answer.
So, Diablo protagonists have often taken on these identities
like the Nephilim or the Wanderer.
And who are you exactly in Diablo 5,
and how does that fit into this story?
Yeah, as Jennifer said, you'll be playing the air for Westmarch.
We're returning to the Western continent, and Westmarch is the center of Diablo's invasion.
The continent is essentially greater Westmarch. All of it has been overrun.
It's become an outpost of hell.
There are hardly any humans who haven't bowed or become cultists.
In fact, some powerful humans have been corrupted and raised to become dread commanders.
They have the power of the Dukes of Hell.
And anyone who has resisted gets put into a soul cage or pulled into the terror realm,
Diablo's own corner of hell.
And the story really begins when you find out that you can enter the terror realm and
survive.
And while you're there, you learn about a few other powers
that we're not quite ready to tell you about yet.
So that seems like a very different sanctuary
from the one we know today.
What can players expect from the world of Diablo 5?
Yeah, so one thing that's always been really special
about the Diablo experience is that every gameplay session
is a journey.
And there's an element of unexpectedness
that I think is quintessentially part
of that Diablo experience.
And the story that we're trying to tell in Diablo 5 really lends itself to this idea.
Every time you enter in, the world looks a little bit different,
and you don't know quite what to expect.
As Jennifer mentioned, we're entering a world where Diablo has won.
It's been seven years since he's conquered Sanctuary,
and he and his drug commanders, their corruption and their influence,
has really spread throughout West March,
and they're actively reshaping the land as we know it.
and affectionately on the team,
we love a good pun on a Diablo team,
we call that terror forming.
Now this plays out is every time you return to
the same point, the same region that you've been before,
it's going to look a little bit different.
Those dread commanders that Joe was talking about,
they really twisted and corrupted that land.
So the landmarks that you see,
the monsters that you're running into,
all of that terrain,
it's going to be a little bit different.
Well, I'm a planner.
I really like to know what to expect beforehand.
I was researching how does the parking situation work up
Liz Khan for weeks before I got here.
And that makes me comfortable.
I want to know what to predict in life.
But when it comes to games, it's the complete opposite, right?
I want to lean into the unknown because that's what's fun.
That idea of not knowing what's around the corner
is what creates a lot of tension.
So in Diablo, 2005, we're bringing back the procedural world,
both in the dungeons and the overworld.
And I think that's...
So, if you go back to a region that you've been before, you know, all that information
that I knew yesterday, that path that I found, that landmark that I was moving towards, how
to fight those elite monsters, none of that information is going to help me today.
And the only thing beyond the fog of war are more questions.
And that's really exciting to me.
Joe often talks to his team about the importance of constant discovery, that you should never
never really feel safe because, you know, as he mentioned, all the towns are gone and
Sanctuary is just a brutal place to be.
And so John and his team have really taken that idea of the Dread Commanders, of that
corruption that Diablo is bringing, and it's been really awesome seeing what he's doing
to the world.
Yeah, we have three visual stories we talk about on the art team, and the way we see
this world, and the art team is like having so much fun, like doubling down on darkness
and what that means for Diablo 5.
We talk about the past.
And the past is where it's everything that has been lost.
And we get to tell all these really rich stories
with Jennifer's team and working with the designers
hand in hand to really fill the world with what has gone on
since the last 100 years, especially the last seven
years since sanctuary fell.
And there's this sort of life after people.
And what does it really mean to have this desolate vision
of sanctuary?
The second lens that we looked through is the present.
And this is where evil has touched the world.
This is where the Dread Commanders have come through,
and it's like the forest fire has burned.
And what's left?
And it's where the art team, especially,
has to have a ton of fun, because this is where all
the really weird dark stuff happens,
where the Dread Commanders have affected
the world of sanctuary.
And then lastly, the future.
This is what we're trying to prevent.
This is hell breaking through, and each of the Dread Commanders
have their own unique look and their own exciting visual theme
that they apply to the world.
And this is really dynamic and cool.
And I think everybody's gonna really enjoy
like seeing just these three distinct stories
and very clear about what we're doing.
So that all feels really personal,
like not as much rebuilding a kingdom,
but this visceral survival one day at a time.
How does that shape the way players
should navigate the world?
This is one of my, personally,
one of my favorite parts of the game
is how do we represent a town or a place of safety
in a world where Diablo has already won
and there literally is no safe place.
And so we started thinking about this problem.
The idea that really stuck with us
is this idea that the player is the point of safety.
You and your band of followers are the last remains
of humanity and the light in the darkness of sanctuary.
So in Diablo 5, throughout the campaign,
you're going to be bringing your caravan,
You're a traveling band of wagons and followers with you throughout the world and everywhere
you stop there's going to be a new part of the world to explore.
And as you move through the world, meet new survivors that caravans are going to grow.
They're going to become your merchants, your craftspeople and your companions.
And we're going to be able to tell much deeper stories about these characters that come with
you through the journey with your caravan.
One of the reasons this most excited me when I joined the team when we started talking
about this idea is it reminded me so much of the rogue encampment in Diablo 2.
Yes, the rogue encampment stays in one place, it doesn't move, but it has this vibe, it's
a tone of the whole game of humanity just kind of like eking out a corner of safety
among all of this terrible stuff.
And the campfire at the center of it kind of representing in a lot of ways that hope
of humanity.
And when your characters walk out, the characters select screen and they approach the campfire
and it just gives you this sense of this is humanity here around the campfire in this
last bastion against evil.
And I think that our caravan in Diablo 5 is really going to take that to the next level.
So in B5, it's as though your vendors are literally traveling with you.
That's a really dramatic shift.
Yeah.
So in prior Diablos, you would go town to town, and there would always conveniently
be a blacksmith there, as an example, waiting to help you out. It would be Bob 1, Bob 2.
But in Diablo 5, all the towns are destroyed. There are not a lot of survivors left. And so
when a blacksmith chooses to join your caravan, well, he's going to be Bob Prime. Jennifer tells
me that that name is not final. Yep, that's Ken and now. And you'll get to know this character
and understand how he's survived so far, why he's choosing to join your caravan. I think Blizzard
has done such a great job over the decades creating these really memorable characters.
I know there's a lot that have resonated with me. I've named the cat Jaina. I've named the cat Decker Kane.
I have dogs named Bastion and Sigma. So clearly these characters, they mean a lot to me and a lot of the players that are out there.
And Jennifer and her team have been doing an incredible job coming up with our new cast of characters for the caravan.
And one that we're really excited to talk about, well, his name is Zarg, so I don't
know if that name is final either, but maybe don't name any pets that yet.
Maybe more final than Bob Criven.
Maybe more final.
So, Zarg, he's a treasure goblin, and I think we as Yabba players all have a love-hate relationship
with treasure goblins.
We've all had a story about how you're out there slaying monsters, mining your own business,
you see a treasure goblin show up on your mini map, and you throw your entire strategy out
the window, you can chase them all the way across the map.
And sometimes you're successful, sometimes you're not.
Hopefully you're not playing in hardcore.
But in Diablo 5, you're going to get the chance
to know a treasure goblin as more than just a loot
pinata for once.
And what's awesome about Zarg is, well, he's a demon.
And he is motivated by treasure.
That's what he loves.
And I don't really know if you can trust demons,
but as you're playing for the campaign,
you're going to get an opportunity to know Zarg.
Why is he joining your caravan?
What his backstory is?
What he's done to survive so far?
Why he's joining up with you?
And what his role is in helping you potentially defeat Diablo?
And I think that we can trust Ard, right, Jennifer?
Absolutely trust Ard, because he totally understands
that you are much easier to steal from than Diablo.
So yeah, like Tiffany was saying,
the caravan is a huge part of the way
that we balance this darker world
with making it a world worth saving.
So there are no normal civilians left,
which means you're never gonna run into a quest giver
standing at the side of the road
waiting to ask you to do them a favor.
Instead, your caravan characters
become the source of all of your side content.
And every one of them is an interesting,
multifaceted person who you chose
to bring into your caravan, into your life.
And the quests that they give you
are part of their personal story.
And so every side quest that you do in this game
is important.
It matters because it matters to someone who matters to you.
Or as I like to shorthand it, the real hell
is the friends you make along the way.
So sanctuary is occupied and survival is quite personal.
But let's shift for a second from where
you are to who you effectively become.
So Joe, how is the team thinking about class identity
in D5?
Yeah, so we've talked about how you play as the heir to Westmarch,
but of course, class identity in Diablo is fundamental.
Standing around the campfire, looking at, say, a demon hunter,
standing there with their scarf, their twin crossbows.
That's not just any character.
That's part of who you're choosing to be.
And so today, I know it's we're just announcing it,
but I can announce a couple of classes.
here that are going to be joining Diablo 5, the Demon Hunter.
That's Joe's favorite class.
I had to be there.
Sparkling all right.
John has promised me a scarf.
The Demon Hunter, of course, incredible class, so agile, leaping through the air, pinning
demons against the walls.
How could we not bring the Demon Hunter back?
But also, the Monk will be returning.
You'll be able to once again, pulpify demons with your fists.
And if there are any that are out of range, call down Holy Light to smite them.
But with Diablo 5, we're also going to be bringing new classes to the game.
And today I can announce that the Plague Knight is the first new class that will be joining
Diablo 5.
This is a heavily armored class.
It's a walking death.
You're going to be roaming the battlefield, spreading disease, and then consuming it for
power.
Sounds unsanitary, Joe.
It is.
It is.
We're going to have to get the Skeletons of the King Janitor up here, I think, but you
know, Diablo 5 is going to launch with more classes than ever before, and I don't just
mean more classes than another Diablo game at ship, I mean more classes.
Total.
And the thing about Diablo classes is that they're approachable, you can jump in, you
can immediately have an exciting time playing them.
But there's also deep ARPG mastery there
and a multitude of builds to explore.
So for many of us players,
that hunt for the perfect item
is the true heart of the experience.
What can you share with us today
about gear, inventory, itemization?
I know a lot of people here are very curious about that.
I know that there are people,
some of you have been waiting probably
to get to some of the crunchier bits.
And it was important, even though we're just
announcing the game today, that we talk a little bit
about itemization.
So we've got an inventory screen here.
This is concept art.
This is not final.
But it really shows the pillars of itemization for Diablo.
Depth, clarity, and identity.
And belts.
And belts.
That's right, nobody wants to get enhanced by Diablo.
Diablo will have, Diablo 5 will feature item tiers.
Items will start simple and then grow
and go on a journey with you,
sort of like they did in Diablo 2.
Also, you may have noticed that there are multi-slot items
in the inventory screen behind you.
This is part of our approach with the Abba 5 to really nail the item's identity.
When you think about how an item is represented in the game, you see it on the ground,
and then you see it in your inventory.
Once you put it on, maybe you have a totally different look for it.
The art team's loving the larger icons and also kind of like, you know, the familiarity of that.
Yeah.
And we have some really great solutions for any controller players
players who might be worried about manipulating those items in their inventory.
Finally, we are bringing back gear-based sets.
We love what the Talisman did in Lord of Hatred, but we want to attach that set, the concept
to gear again, because it kind of gives you this quest.
You pick it up from the ground, you see you've got this piece of something, and if you can
just collect the other things, you can complete that idea.
And we have some incredible ideas for how to make sure that the set items broaden the
number of builds that are available rather than shrinking them.
Finally, we are experimenting a bit with stat requirements on items.
So, not sure if that's fine.
But I make a lot of similes on team and maybe too many sometimes.
But I like to think of itemization kind of like a city, right?
Think about New York City.
It's this enormous metropolis, but you can immediately go to Times Square and find something
cool.
And that's kind of how I think about our set items.
But then once you really sort of dig in and start to master it, you learn where is the
best deli, where is the best pizza, and you really get into that crunchy opportunity to
define your own builds.
And that's what we want to do with D5.
So after 30 years, Diablo has both long time and new players.
How's the team thinking about developing for this next era for such a broad community?
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I think for us, it's super important that Diablo 5 feels unmistakably Diablo in particular for our long-time players.
And again, that kind of starts with what I talked about at the beginning, understanding who are Diablo players at their core,
what do they want, what do they need out of a Diablo game, you know, whether they just started playing Diablo and Diablo 4
or they've been playing since Diablo 1 or Diablo 2.
And getting feedback from those players is critical to our ability to really understand that.
we're all players, we all have our own thoughts and feelings about it, but when you're building
a game, you kind of, you know, you need other people to look at your work and give you that
critical feedback. And so we want to get that feedback now. We want to get the feedback as
early as possible. That's why we're announcing today. That's why we're excited to bring the
community into the process of making the game along the way towards our launch date. For me,
me as a fan growing up of games, it was always so amazing for me to have this kind of authentic
interactions with developers. I used to be really excited about BluePosts or a Vidoc
that would drop or a blog post, and it was a way for me to kind of see and feel the passion
of the dev team firsthand. And I'm excited for us to be able to do that on our journey
to shipping Diablo 5. Really this today, the information we're sharing, this is just the
start and you can expect that we're going to be giving regular updates about how
development is going and what's we're excited about to get that feedback from
all of you starting in 2027. Awesome. So before we wrap I just want to bring this
back to what makes Diablo so special. It means so many different things to so
many different players. It's the loot chase, it's the theory crafting, it's the
darkness, it's the story and the characters. For Diablo 5 it's our
chance certainly to honor all of that but also begin a new conversation as each of you have shared
today. I'd love to just close by hearing a personal thought from each of you. Sure. You know, I
mentioned I have joined the dev team a couple years ago. I've been a lifelong fan of Diablo
since Diablo 1. So it's really been an honor to join such a deeply knowledgeable and passionate team.
And that was something that became really clear to me very early on, it's just how
knowledgeable and passionate this team is about ARPGs and about Diablo. I mean,
there are people working on Diablo 5 who have been working on Diablo games for a
decade, for more than a decade, decades. There's a really deep well of knowledge
here and passion that goes with it. And those things create a sense of energy on
the dev team. You can feel it when you join a team like that. I feel the honor to
to work with some really talented developers
and some really talented development teams in my career.
And when I joined this team, that energy
that I felt with those teams, I can feel it here.
This team is really ready to make something truly fantastic,
and I'm really honored to be a part of it.
Great.
Coming in as someone new on a project with as much history
and as big a fan base, and so many people who love it,
who it's so important to, is frankly kind of intimidating.
But this team has been just such an amazing group
of people to be part of.
Everybody is so talented and has so much passion
for Diabla, for Sanctuary, for the eternal conflict.
Every single day on the campaign team,
somebody has a great new idea, and we're all like,
Yes, absolutely.
We've got to change everything.
We've got to fit that in.
And I'm sure after we start seeing all of the reactions
to what we've shared here today, we're going to come back
with a ton of new inspiration.
First of all, I do have to slip in a happy birthday
to my daughter because it's her birthday tomorrow.
And I hope that she was watching me at home right now,
but maybe not watching all of our content
because she's turning four.
But what I'm excited about is Diablo is finally back.
It's been over a decade since we've been able to tell a story where he is at the center of it.
He is the reason I think that we all were compelled to start picking up the Master Keyword Controller and play Diablo to begin with.
And it's so exciting as a member of the community myself, a developer, a player, to be able to be a part of the journey of Diablo.
It's been 30 years.
I can't believe I've been playing Diablo
for almost that entire time.
And being able to come in and collaborate with my friends,
my teammates every single day,
and share what we love about Diablo together
is just been, it's such a great opportunity
and I feel very blessed.
Yeah, I think for the art team,
it's like the world is just such a playground for us.
We had so much fun making Diablo 4,
And this really feels like we just have such a clear mandate,
I think, working with the narrative team,
but also bringing breathing life
into these characters of the caravan.
I think it's really going to be a very special thing
about this game.
And that's kind of what I can't wait to show more next year.
And yeah, that's it.
We talked about how D5 will let you define your identity,
discover builds, taste memorable loot, right?
But more than that, our job is to build the game
that players want, that you want.
Not what we think you should want.
We want to build the best Diablo game,
and that means listening to you, listening to your feedback,
and allowing it to shape the game.
Thank you so much and BlizzCon, of course, is just the start of this conversation.
Cannot wait and we'll keep listening and we'll keep sharing, but thank you for everyone
to attending this and listening in and alongside our community.
Hopefully, we'll make a wonderful Diablo 5 together.
So thanks everybody.
We'll see you again soon.
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It's time to discover what's ahead for World of Warcraft Midnight.
Hello, BlizzCon!
Oh, my goodness, it's so great to be back here with all of you.
Are you having a good time?
Yeah!
Are you liking what you're seeing so far?
Yeah!
My name is Jake Miller, and I have the humble pleasure of sharing a peek behind the curtain
of what's next for World of Warcraft.
Today, we'll take a trip through the timeways
to discuss the immediate future and beyond.
I'll take you on a trip through something new,
and then we'll go into 12.2, midnight season three,
and a little bit more.
Now, if we're to navigate the timeways,
of course, we're going to need a map.
We'll be starting away on the left with 12.15.
Of course, this is already on the PTR,
and we're stoked to get more of your feedback
to make it the best that it can be.
There, we'll find new campaign chapters,
mini-raid, invasions, hollows and updates,
and so much more, but first, a little something new.
Let's rewind a bit to a slide shared at PAX East.
The big man of stairs, Jeremy Fiesel,
shared some tidbits, some breadcrumbs
that included that our next game mode would have a vibe
that is a little bit on the scary story side of things,
and it's definitely not a battle royale.
I'm here to share more.
Let's take a look at our next game mode.
The world of Warcraft 2
Talebound is a new game mode by the World of Warcraft team.
A fresh adventure, Talebound is a roguelike action RPG
that takes place in its own world, where stories come to life
and danger lurks around every corner.
Play solo or group up with friends
to discover a new gameplay style, new classes,
new stories, and a bevy of rewards for your midnight account.
Our story begins as the player happens
upon a mysterious storyteller who snatches them out
of their own reality to become his own unwitting and unwilling
pawn to serve as the protagonist in his stories.
The storyteller's favorite kind of stories, of course,
our horror stories.
of desire, of blood and spilling friendship, and love curdling into obsession, of words
woven with delusion and death, stars cracking with madness, whispers slipping between broken
It is a story that yearns to be told, and mine is the tribulation to have yet to be told.
It begins as such tales often do.
With a pilgrim,
I lost my dark,
my mystified terror.
I lost my dark, my mystified terror.
I lost my dark, my mystified terror.
Experience the tales of the storyteller,
differently themed levels with their own lutes,
enemies, bosses, stories, and puzzles.
You will encounter, you will explore the tales for potions, treasure chests,
and lost relics that power you up
as you endeavor to reach the final confrontation
against tea who marks your step with word and pen.
Quillgrave is where you'll rest your head between stories,
hanging your cap up as you sip cocoa and strategize for the tales to come.
It's a place that seems familiar but is not quite right.
You're welcome to stay, but the storyteller and the village don't like to leave a tale
unfinished.
After you've rested, it'll be time to take up arms and endeavor in the telling and retelling
of stories that will test your new abilities.
Let's take a look at the classes in Talebound, starting with the Slayer.
As you can see, Combat in Tailbound tells a deliberate positional story, where every
class double jumps, dodges, and guards.
You'll have to master each of these skills to best the unique challenges that you face
in Tailbound.
The Slayer's Martial Might and Monster Hunter prowess give him the rare physical tools to
combat the beasts of folklore.
Slash is a sequence of three attacks that damages enemies in front of you, with higher
damage and a stun on the final blow.
in tailbound, lesser enemies flinch when attacked,
making for more dynamic combat.
Explosive shot fires your shotgun at enemies in front of you,
closer shots dealing more damage,
and you can empower this ability to heighten the fuse
and deal greater damage.
Minefield allows you to leap backward
and hurl an arc of mines in front of you.
These mines inflict damage and slow the enemies
that would pass them.
Shrapnel round fires multiple rounds
at enemies bouncing between foes
and inflicting damage all the while.
And throwing knives moves the player quickly
and strikes nearby enemies.
It, crucially, can cancel your other attacks for fast movement.
Next up, the Inquisitor.
Her zeal lights every corner and burns the face of evil
no matter the illusions it uses to hide.
Purifies a sequence of three attacks
that damages enemies in front of you with each strike
more powerful than the last.
Contem damages enemies in front of you,
inflicting holy damage and reducing their movement speed.
Crucially, it is castable while moving.
Denounce is an empowered ability
that inflicts more damage the longer you stand
and force your foes to confess.
Light's wrath conjures a wrathful sun
above an enemy burning enemies nearby them.
And rapture reads enemies in damaging flames
that you may detonate on your command.
Finally, Radiant Burst can be cast while moving to hurl fire at a nearby foe, exploding on
impact and burning all nearby enemies.
And last in my favorite, the Witch.
Brewing Storm is a sequence of three attacks that inflicts lightning damage with the last
strike dealing the highest damage.
Bubbling Cauldron summons a plague of frogs that leap forward from your Cauldron, seeking
out a random enemy to explode for poisonous damage.
Feline communion transforms you into a cat for a short time, and while in this form,
a shower of stars inflict damage to all nearby enemies, and you may cast crooked paths to
blink forward, escaping through the moonlight.
Winter spiders summon to swarm that skitter forward with brood mother included, inflicting
high damage in a small area.
And finally, moonlight ravens is a channeled spell used while moving to summon a flock
of ravens that each seek out nearby targets, dive-bombing them.
There are four stories to explore, told and retold and retold until you can best them.
Darkhaven is home to Conrad von Sonnensheim, the Lord Marshal, and Alexander Dazhin, the
blood bishop.
Green-thistle wood houses granny green thumb,
which of the woods, eel-scavile fang,
which of the wilds, and mobong, the giant of green-thistle.
Grey-wakes expedition tells the tale of the many who have fallen
to zict the hadal tyrant and kakwa, the herald from beyond.
And finally, the grove of the night court
weaves a frightening chronicle of tilly-width,
the fairy queen, and mare-knock, the nightmare king.
Let's take a look at the environments and denizens of these stories.
After each run of a tail, return to Quillgrade.
to work together with the arcanist, scribe, outfitter, and antiquarian
to improve your odds in your next attempt.
The arcanist provides new potions, drafts, and flasks
to be found throughout the tale.
The scribe provides talents that change the abilities you use to best your foes.
The outfitter improves your starting health, damage, energy, and focus.
And the antiquarian provides meaningful passives
that augment how each tale may be approached.
Now gather around the campfire, get lost in a tale, and find yourself returning with many cosmetic rewards for your midnight account.
We'll see you in Quill Grave in October for an early preview on PTR.
Now I've got to get to another timeline, so for now to round out our witching hour and tell the tale of our next updates, please welcome my colleague, Paul Cuban.
Hello, World of Warcraft fans.
You guys having fun so far?
Hellbound looks nuts, am I right?
All right, listen, we'll strap in.
because we've got a lot more to cover.
I want to talk about our next major patch, 12.2 Eclipse.
You've got a sneak peek of it this morning.
But first, let's catch ourselves up
on the recent history of midnight.
So in the curse of Ulotec, we challenged and defeated
Ulotec, this winged, writhing avatar of hatred
deep beneath the coiled aisle.
And in doing so, we discovered she was not simply
biding her time down there.
No.
She was constricting something.
something horrifying, something ancient,
something believed to be long dead by the Imani people.
Kithics.
You can see the hole beneath where we killed it.
That's where we're gonna go down to take on Kithics.
In the upcoming patch 1215,
we will delve beneath Ulotex Chamber
and into Kithics's prison.
The outcome of that fight leads us into patch 1217,
which does have some big, juicy story moments
that we're just not quite ready to talk about yet.
I'm gonna try to keep this spoiler light for y'all today,
at least from a story perspective.
But that story leads us into World of Warcraft's patch 12.2,
the final major content update of midnight, Eclipse.
All right, let's take a look at what you have to look forward to.
So Eclipse starts by featuring a new zone,
and this is called the mantle vault.
This cavern, hidden away eons ago by the Titans,
will be unearthed.
It's half Azerite crystal, half Titan machine,
And this is where we are going to make our stand,
the final stand against the devouring host.
Let's take a look at the mental ball.
In the mantle vault, we will turn midnight's battle between light and void up to 11, as
we bring our own light-wielding forces with us to hopefully deliver a decisive blow to
Zalatath's devouring host.
We'll also find ourselves allied with a group that we've heard about but never truly met
before, the Thregar.
This is an ancient race of crystalline dwarf-like creatures that the Earthen only know about
from tales and whispers.
This image here doesn't do this guy justice when you see him in-game, they're enormous,
they've got this glow to him, they're really cool, can't wait for you to get to meet them.
Now separate from the forces of light and void, basically mining their own business
on the other side of the zone over there, we have the Deep Scar Empire.
This is a coalition of sort of subterranean low-lifes that are not very hospitable to
our presence, included among them you can see there's cobalts, there's troggs, there's
drug bar and there's their leaders, the Niffen. You might remember the Niffen from
Zerelect Cavern. They're back, they're hostile this time and they are the
bosses of this group because they are the smartest among them but not by much.
The mantle vault also plays host to its own unique ecology of azurite based
wildlife where we have enormous stone worms, crystalline elementals, and
Noctenax. This enormous azurite bat is one of Eclipse's new raid bosses, and it can be found within its layer, the gear hold.
As you might have guessed by the header of the image behind me and by me juicing the word layer right there, it is confirmed we are bringing back layers for Eclipse.
Noctenax awaits you on world difficulty for sure, but also on normal and heroic and of course flexible mythic difficulty.
Yeah.
All right.
As you progress through Eclipse's story, you'll pass through a brand new dungeon,
and this dungeon is known as Thraegar's Stands.
This is a three-boss dungeon.
That first boss is a pair of bosses.
Actually, it's Craig Cleaver and Foreman Sulk.
They're a pair from that deep-star empire that you saw earlier.
There's Monok, a big Azerite elemental you can see here,
and a deadly Titan construct named Stenvarg the inevitable.
A three-guard stand will be part of season 3's Mythic Plus rotation,
and I'll have some more information on that in just a little bit.
I don't want to talk too much about the details of the Eclipse campaign,
but I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that that story ends in a raid,
and that raid is called the Worldcore.
Now, this is your classic 8-boss raid, where we're going to fight some big void enemies,
for sure, but also Titan constructs, living Azerite, and Gemilis Prime, who is sort of
the epitomal version of that void jellyfish boss that you might remember we fought at
top, Magistrate's Terrace.
This is sort of Gemilis' mama.
And of course, at the end of it all, we get to face
her.
Her.
Zalatath.
The harbinger of the void, the herald of dementia, the blade of the black empire.
Do I have any shadow priests here with me?
We've been with Zalatath for some time now.
Her schemes have kept us at her heels throughout the entire world, soul saga.
But now, now we get our comeuppance.
Her motivations are laid there and we get to enact the final stand of the battle of
light versus void.
Defeat her and you may obtain something valuable, something that perhaps a caster in your raid
group might enjoy? That's right. The first legendary of midnight, and indeed the first
legendary of the World Soul saga is Midnight's Edge. And it will be found within the World
Core Raid. This weapon is a caster dagger, but it's important to note, this is not the
the Black Blade of the Empire that you shadow priests along with me once wielded.
This is its own thing. It's got its own cool thing, said it does.
Defeating the raid is just one of the steps you're going to have to complete to obtain this thing.
Now, today I was able to get clearance to share with you the name of this weapon.
I was able to get clearance to share the model. I couldn't get the full tooltip, unfortunately.
But I have a redacted version here, so if you get your cameras out to take a real quick picture,
I can only show it for a little bit, and it is...
Here you go.
Okay.
All right. Let's move on to talking about season three, which will kick off shortly after Eclipse launches, along with a new PVP season.
Do I have any PVPers here, by the way?
On this side of the room is where the PVPers are.
Along with that PVP season, which will come at season three, and the new raids that we already got to stop,
We'll also see a new Mythic Plus dungeon pool, along with some fun changes to Delves.
And let's take a look at those.
So Season 3s are always a little funny because we've already had the chance to play through
basically every dungeon in the expansion so far in a Mythic Plus context so far.
And so this time around, we've been really busy polishing up a package of awesome,
thematic, varied legacy dungeons that I think are going to be really awesome.
But first of all, we have Gragar's Stand.
That's the new one.
We also have some Legacy Dungeons appearing in this season, and they are...
And they are...
The Underrot,
Iron Docks,
Sanguine Depths,
Stonecore,
and Uldaman, Legacy of Tyr.
So, as you're familiar with from seasons one and season two,
all of these dungeons are going to get updates to make sure they're up to date
and consistent with our modern design.
Old Amon's Legacy of Tierra, I'm looking at you in particular.
I highly doubt you escaped this process
with five bosses still inside you.
They're all going to get big updates.
We're also returning to a few Midnight Dungeons,
and those are Magistrar's Charris and Mysara Cavalry.
And both of these are also going to get
some big changes and touch-ups.
These are not going to be the exact same Season 1 Dungeons
that you may have played through.
They're going to be leaner and meaner.
Plus, now we get to beat up Gemilis and Magistris Charrison,
Gemilis Prime in the raid, which I think is kind of funny.
All right, let's talk about Mythic Plus rewards.
We've had some great Mythic Plus seasons in midnight so far,
and one part of that has been the way that rewards have worked.
Recently, we added the Keystone Myth achievement,
which has been pushing players to dig out even higher ratings.
And we've also taken that historic top 0.1% achievement
and extended it into a slightly more accessible tier,
the top 1%. These are things that have already happened.
In Eclipse, we're going a little bit further.
First, there will be a top 5% reward for Mythic Plus.
So if you're one of those players who loves pushing keys,
the top 1% isn't quite for you, this might be for you.
Additionally, the top 1% and 5% rewards
will work a little bit differently.
Instead of tracking your rating percentile
against all other players,
you'll instead be ranked against players of your spec.
So, let's think about what that means.
Let's say, for example, you are a tank, you love tanking, and when you look at ratings,
what is the meta?
You might see that, hey, monk tanks happen to be the meta this season, as they were in
season one.
It feels like they can speak at a little bit more rating.
Well, if you really prefer tanking as a Paladin,
that's your preference.
That's what you're good at.
You're going to have a better chance
getting that top 5%, that top 1% as a Paladin.
So you should just play what you want to play.
We're super excited about this.
We're hopeful we're going to see a lot of spect adversity
in the upcoming season.
We'll see how it goes.
All right, let's talk about Delves.
with a new season comes up, they said Delves.
The Eclipse story actually kicks off in a Delve.
You can see it pictured behind me,
but I can't tell you too much about what it is
without revealing some juicy story bits,
but it's gonna be good.
I'm actually like really excited for you guys
to see how this plays in.
It's a really cool space.
I will also continue to see Valera sang
when our level up alongside us.
She's gonna be able to level up to 100.
She's gonna have a new set of Cheerios.
She's gonna have a refreshed sense of vengeance.
And you're going to need her help,
because we're going to be facing a nemesis that's
more deadly, more scheming, and more
uncomfortably sensual than any we've ever faced before.
[?].
[?].
[?].
Ask Lord Bloodsworn in season three's Delve nemesis.
All that prey you've been hunting together,
All that investigation into the effects of anguish,
it only takes its toll on an elf.
You know what I mean?
So with Astalora as our nemesis,
we'll also be facing some new opt-in challenges to Delves,
similar to the torments that apply on Hard in Nightmare
Prey.
This is pretty early design, subject to change.
But so far, we're pretty excited about the potential
for some gameplay that you can truly match up
against your preferred play style.
And of course, we'll be adding some additional variations
to existing Delves.
Time will only tell exactly how close to death
we have to bring Astalor before he succumbs to us.
One thing I do know, however, is that if we do kill him,
they'll probably have some sick via.
Now, let's talk a little bit more about prey.
Prey is coming back for season three as well.
Zalatath's attempts to claim the world soul for herself
are causing huge amounts of anguish
to bubble up to the surface.
And our investigations, alongside our new frenemy,
Astalor, will lead us down into the mantle vault.
And there, we will hunt new prey,
we'll face new torments,
and ultimately, we'll unlock the final prey difficulty,
agony mode, beyond nightmare.
This is gonna be a true test
of your determination in grit.
All right, next up, I wanna share a bit
about one of our outdoor features coming in Eclipse,
and this is called Radiant Screams.
So if you all can remember way back
to the days of War Within,
you might remember a feature called World Soul Memories
in which we relived these moments of the World Souls past
through these Azerite tinted visions.
Well, now that we're in the World Core,
next to the World Soul herself, the visions are stronger.
The memories are more intense.
Within the mantle vault, we will periodically
hear the outcries of the World Soul accompanied
by frenzies of activity throughout the zone.
When building this, the team's been looking back
at outdoor events of the past.
Recent ones like Vault of ItaloTech for sure,
but also older features like community feasts or time rifts,
even scrap from undermined and identifying what's worked,
what hasn't, with the goal of building just the coolest
outdoor events we can make.
We're also prepping in some fun new wrinkles.
Radiant Screams, for example, has a massacre chain,
which increases your performance and rewards
based on how long you can keep a kill streak going.
Shape it up to be really cool.
All right.
I've said this phrase a couple of times now, you might have picked up on it, the battle
between light and void.
Now if Salatapp is the void, that makes us the light, right?
That tracks.
Well, if that's the case, I think we'd better beef up our roster of holy warriors.
For that reason, the Paladin Order Hall is taking a queue from World of Warcraft forever
and opening up its doors to a new group.
Forsaken Paladins.
In addition to this killer combo, there's also going to be a really cool questline that explores how these Forsaken Paladins came to be.
So this was the plan.
Forsaken Paladins.
But after we put it together, we thought, you know, this might not be enough.
Zalataph is too great a foe.
So, Darkspear and Night Elf can also be powered and snatched in.
All right, let's move away from the battlefield a little bit and more towards home.
I have any housing aficionados here?
On both sides of the room this time.
So first up, we have a new mode coming to housing,
and this is called the Showcase.
Here's how it works.
You log into the game, you can open up your housing dashboard,
and check out the Showcase.
This will be a bunch of houses that other players have
submitted for you to check out.
It could just be a general collection of pool houses.
I thought my house was really cool,
and I wanted other people to see it,
or it could be a themed event.
The one image here is a spring themed event.
You choose one that appeals to you, visit a few houses
if you like them, you throw it at heart.
You can see I gave a heart here to Eggstravaganza,
And I visited my springtime shop, but I didn't give that one a heart.
Now, if you're a housing efficient out of yourself, as I mentioned,
you can also put your own house up there into the showcase.
When you submit your showcase or your house to the showcase,
it's saved off as a snapshot right there in that moment.
So you can still continue to move things around in your house as well.
You're not going to mess up your submission.
It's still a public safe space.
There will be other people there walking around,
but it will not be affected by what you do in your own home.
And if you do really well in any showcase event,
you can earn some cool thematic day core.
You can also just take a snapshot at any time
and generate a visitor code,
and that is gonna be something you can share
with your friends, share with your community,
making it easier than ever just to share
your creations with others.
Yeah, I think that's cool.
All right, we also have a fun new way.
You can decorate your home using a collection
you may already have.
Specifically, we're adding mannequins.
This is pretty simple.
Place a mannequin in your house, equip it with any gear or weapon or appearance that
you've unlocked.
It's like transmog for a statue.
You can see a couple, you know, human body styles here.
There's going to be a bunch of body styles, a bunch of poses, a bunch of different races
and whatnot.
I'm really excited to share this.
We're also adding a few new ergonomic benefits to housing.
a commonly requested feature has finally come to Azure Ops Homes.
Copy, paste, and multi-select.
If you know, you know.
Copy, paste will do exactly that.
You copy out a piece of decor and then paste the duplicate with the exact same properties in the original.
It's size, it's rotation, it's die, assuming you have copies of the decor and the die to be able to paste it.
Multi-select is also exactly what it says on the tin.
says on the tin, you just select many items together,
either through a click drag or a modifier key
and clicking multiple items, and then move them
or rotate them together around a single pivot point.
So say, for example, you made yourself
this really cool grand piano with a 577 different wooden
planks, and you want to move it from this room over
to that room, it'll not be much easier for you to do that.
Or you can just copy it if you like.
All right, housing folks, I got one more thing for you.
I'm particularly excited about it.
Have you ever been in a situation where you're decorating your home,
decorating with some pieces of decor that you purchased,
and you felt like you didn't buy enough of them?
You wanted to buy more, but you didn't want to go all the way
out to Desilis to the vendor to get more of it?
Yeah? Yes? Okay.
Well, guess what?
In Eclipse, as long as you already own one of the pieces of decor,
You could just buy more of copies in your home
as if you were buying it from a vendor.
No more making shopping lists of all the things
you need to do, no more breaking your flow.
Just get in there and have fun.
All right, listen up, folks.
We're going to be painfully short on time.
I've got a bunch more stuff to cover,
so we'll do some quick hits.
Housing is also coming in 12.2 with four new endeavors,
including the Stormwriters of Isle of Doron.
I love these guys.
They're great.
Now, on the class side of things, particularly excited
about this, we're introducing a feature
called the calibration chamber, where
you and your party or your raid, if you want,
can test your rotation with target dummies
that have advanced features like cool-down resets,
full raid buffs.
It's also just like a really cool look in Titan Space.
PVP progression, this side of the room
where my PVPers are at.
PvP progression is also getting refreshed with a new journey that gives you cool PvP rewards,
even if you are a training grounds comp-stomp champion like yours truly.
And lastly, I want to give you an update of something that's coming in patch 12.2.5.
This is the one that's just one after the eclipse.
As you all know, Transmog is the true end game of WoW.
The way that you express yourself is just as important as those stats that are on the
gear.
The problem is, sometimes restrictions get in the way.
You might see the perfect helm appearance, but it's cloth armor and you don't wear cloth.
These boots will look fantastic with these pants, but the pants are leather and the
boots are male and you're a death knight.
What if none of that mattered?
Starting in patch 1225, you'll be able to transmog your gear across all armor types
without restriction.
And there you have it, the full roadmap revealed, our full roadmap we've covered today.
Jake told you all about Tail Bound coming in patch 12.17,
but as you can see, there's a bunch more fun stuff
coming in that patch as well.
After that, you and I got a big deep dive into Eclipse
and a sneak peek into some of the stuff coming in 12.25.
And if you look beyond that, there's also 12.27,
which has its own features,
and it sort of sits in that icy blue area,
which makes you start to wonder,
what could possibly be, hold on a sec.
You guys feel a chill in the air?
Do you hear the music?
Oh my god, is that Arthas Menneville?
No, worse. It's my beloved co-worker, Jake Miller, but he's been killed offstage and raises a death night, and now I feel he has some news for us.
What's up, Jake?
Paul, I've come back from another timeline when we're not even death will stop us.
That's right. The next World of Warcraft remix is Wrath of the Lich King.
In life we were mere colleagues, but in death we are brothers.
And this completes the roadmap of the time wave.
We're excited to travel along with you every step of the way.
Next week we'll show you the justice of the grave, the true meaning of fear, and the answers
to your questions. Tune in for World of Warcraft Q&A. Post your questions on our forums and
social media, but know your curiosity may be the death of you. Thank you all and from
all of us, have a good show. Thanks everybody.
Please come as brought to you by MSI take the next step in upgrading your visual
experience with MSI's QD OLED monitors built to last brilliance ahead gigabyte
upgrade your life secret lab prograde ergonomics for the highest level
of play.
We have the same level of a damaged player with as much input as Kevster will from Team
Sweden.
But they do have Ice Nome, Kevster's teammate from Virtus.Pro in OWCS, and Ice Nome as a
tank player for Germany will look to be this leader to organize the rest of the troops,
provide all that communication and make sure that they're one step ahead of Team Sweden.
Let's see who comes out on top here. It's going to be the tactical approach of Germany
here for the mechanical prowess of Kevster and Team Sweden.
I mean, I think that's it, right? I think Kevster even is weird to say, but it's got
a lot to prove on this stage. I mentioned seven years and they've not touched this arena
here in the round. I mean, for Sweden, for yourself, Johnny as well, I think the
hopes and dreams of a lot of players that have watched Kevster from when they
were young now grow up to playing against Kevster have a lot of hope for him
still. He's still one of the best to touch the game. That can't be disputed.
Absolutely. He's one of the best damaged players in the entire world and that
sass a lot. But you know, as I'm Swedish, like you said, a lot of pressure on this
team Sweden roster to come through here at BlizzCon, because you look back to some of the
rosters in the past, what they've been able to accomplish. The fact that Sweden were unable to
qualify for the main event last time around, that really left a mark, a scar, on team Sweden here
at the Overwatch World Cup. And now this year, they're back in full force here, really took it to
United States in the group stage in Busan, coming in as a second seed here. They're facing Germany
in this one, but they want to restore some of that glory that we celebrated from Sweden in the past.
They've got Admiral on the team too, another real heavy hitter in the support line up.
I think Miskar have done a good job of cementing themselves and like,
look, we are a force we reckon.
We are a team that is going to take you the distance on this international stage.
Gates unlock.
Will this...
Well, we're back to Demon.
Ice Goat doing the same.
And we're going to see the Freya come out actually for Sorrow.
It is a hero we've been seeing more and more in this hitscan role
as a boss they've been coming in for this hero.
A bit of a step back though in the mid-season patch, but Torin on the left out here, releasing those bolts.
A lot of damage to be wary of if you're in Germany.
Well, they're taking the brunt of damage right now, is Lysk kinda chasing Lysk's sword.
Flies are opening, no in-sky, okay.
No swish step, no nothing there.
Both Demons coming up, oh it kills, but it's Willis that's ejected from the mech.
Thanks to Arcus' precision.
And now we see Germany with a very trivial cap on this first one.
And Demon is going to be the first hero that's kind of entering the battlefield here.
We've seen so many times how these Demon players, they excel at getting deep into the enemy backline.
And if you find that first frag, that should usually propel you to a teamfight victory.
That time, Ice-Nom, who won step ahead of Willis and earns Germany the teamfight win.
We're just having a hard time, kind of clambering these steps right now.
The shield's gonna get deleted fairly quick, but they're not careful though, it's capstone.
Now, find another point of contention in the back line.
QXU is gonna pop that turret for.
Kevster very close to earning this pulse from as well.
Forced to teleport early on.
19 HP picks up the health flag for already sweeping in retreat.
Yeah, no recall available. Kevster as it is engaged and the rest of the team does as well.
40% and counting.
Loki is going to be slightly ahead here with the Kitsuna rush for Germany.
And we're stepping up again. Kevster with a pulse.
Fixed the ground though. Pancake that one.
Still though, piling on the damage onto the Bastion, but they're just ignoring him in this case.
Hard to say most of the timers, we do see a limit break come out and any Skyl's life pretty quick.
Will is ejected too as Johnny, hate to say it big man.
Sweden, they're not off to a hot start.
They are not indeed, and I feel like in the boot stages, Sweden were really good when it came to fighting their time
and buying enough time for Kevster to have a big impact on that tracer.
But so far, they're pretty quiet and it's been all Germany in this one, playing better around their demons.
I'll have this early fashion, oh.
Make them think, make them hide, make them cower and then go into this final fight.
Bola available here for Zoro 2. Willis again on the point.
There is a limit break here, they used to rush early on, but Germany were really good to disengage.
But now Kepster can get active in the backline, but Akku quickly turning tail and look at Kepster.
That's an ultimate that actually would like back here as Sweden gains control of the counterpoint. Many of the ultimates available here as well.
Listen to setup Sweden need if they want to make a comeback in this run. They gotta be perfect from here on out.
Slow and steady now for Sweden.
Overuse your ult. Good pick on Tec.
That's an ultimate that actually would like back here as Sweden gains control of the counterpoint. Many of the ultimates available here as well.
Sweden turn over you shaltz good pick on to xxj though probably gonna result in a
fairly quick disengage there it is or we'll go again and this is gonna build up this
percentage quickly here Jaws as Sweden channel back in this round now just need a couple of
team fight wins and they could get away with a victory here CLS for ultimates to go Germany has
none it's gonna take quite a bit here for Germany to have a real good chance at claiming this round
High ground this side.
Different angle.
QXU. Waiting for that turret for
an opportune moment to strike.
Does he Kevster in the bottom left there
or might have done?
Well, yeah, there's your bat line.
Eventually now, Kevster kind of
turns things up a notch.
Ice is dead. They got a full armor to kill on the back.
No problem, Sweden. Still in it.
And Johnny, they've used no ult.
No ult. No ult.
Critically because Kevster found that early pick
And it's patient play from Sweden, who now suddenly are in the driver's seat here.
This next fight is going to be absolute madness.
Germany looking to build five ultimates of their own.
I have this final fight of the opening round.
Again waiting for an opportunity to...
...Puzaro to kind of descend back down and then put Curax U in a better spot.
Gonna swing in for now.
Kevster with another false bomb looking for an opening pick again. There is a cat map for Admiral. Not sure who end up cat mapping there
But didn't really mean too much apparently. Limit break for Ice now straight to the back. Everybody's backing all the way up that rush
overwhelming for Germany. I
Should be able to get a decent limit break here. It's a swing and a little miss too
Ice going incredibly low. His Admiral ends up getting a double kill in the fray. Sweden
Stand it tall, Germany get the point, flip short but it don't matter.
Sweden are going to claim the round one. 99 to 99 and there it is.
Sweden come back in a massive way.
They were perfect from their own out. Really impressive comeback by the Swedes who
just individual picks bought themselves enough time to build the openness
necessary to kind of close things out there.
In Germany, they just couldn't get a good teamfight going there after securing 96% to start that round off.
A little disappointing, they couldn't stay alive together as they were pushing towards that point.
Give themselves an opportunity to at least put pressure on Sweden.
They didn't get any ultimates out from Team Sweden.
And that is a big mistake there from Germany, really, because if you have 96% already, there's a lot of pressure on Sweden to like,
Hey, we gotta deploy ultimates. We must stay alive in this round.
But because Germany, they died early, they didn't even put that amount of pressure on Sweden to make them hesitant, to make them feel forced to draw those ultimates out.
And Sweden back from the ground. Thank you, first one.
Catches us back on the Tracer. Very quiet to start off with though.
But this is a specialty here.
Ice on the Sigma.
Already one of his better heroes.
But let's say it's the demon Johnny. It's pretty easy to take these aggressive angles and really push the Sigma back
Using what Sigma is very good at which is holding an angle holding this high ground
And also from Germany here like swinging out with the Bastion
That's going to be a difficult thing because we just already wrapped around there and they got so much control
This is Germany's time. I don't push towards the point. Nice pick from pure XO actually and that should probably bite him in our space here
Yeah, it's just basically going to play wheels mode, right?
Stand behind the Sigma.
Oh, you want to come at us?
That's fine.
We can just gotten you down.
No problems.
Turned you into swish cheese.
Oh, what is this?
Trouble.
They're looking for something here.
They're forwarding the slide.
They need to find a pick.
Yeah, they need to find it kind of quickly too.
They're actually on the point right now.
And they've actually capped most of it.
So Isis 4 should actually stay in this position.
Okay.
Eventually ejected from the mech is Willis Stone.
A Germany kind of struggling still to deal with the ever looming presence of Kevster.
Sweden do get the point.
All the end is hockey or XU.
It gets a double Nadeskill on the point.
But Sweden still close that out.
How did they claw that one back?
Germany gets the opening pick.
They have the point, but it's well played positionally from Sweden.
They didn't overcommit, didn't force their hand too much,
and then found themselves in a favorable position.
position so great job by the Swedes there claim the point once more here
and another setup they got ultimacy in the bank they're feeling quite happy
I said there's the kidnap from Apple it's a trivial kill there oh and Zoro
takes the credit that doesn't seem fair I'm gonna be honest but hey sometimes I
think fair Zoro coming online here too had a bit of a quiet opening round but
but this Freya dealing a lot of, having a lot of impact so far.
We're so back with the Rhine swing into shield, Rhine swing into shield,
Blade swing into shield, like whoop whoop whoop whoop.
Well, some of these demons are capable of it, it's just ridiculous.
What a kid this is. Will is now with the Limit Rage.
Because the skill ceiling is just ridiculous on the team.
Both rushes, here comes the Artillery Barrage though, from HeroXU.
Now putting him in spot where he can benefit mostly from that rush.
Limit break is going to be picked up by the sense of being caught.
Now this is an absolute massacre in this room for Sweden.
The winners limit break there was just gross.
A Fox is going to come out though for Ice.
Do you know what I mean?
Still thinking they can win this in the 2v3.
Get shut down eventually.
A small sigh there from Ice too knowing that could be the ult that swings this round.
Germany haven't really been able to stabilize with this slower Sigma composition at all.
Whoa!
Nice pick from QRXO actually.
Sorrow not keeping score there of what heroes Germany's want to in spawn 90% for Sweden here. Jeremy have to get back with me
Yeah, this is a beautiful opening
You don't see that every day
Kessler's got post one though
He's gonna be looking for that to be certain. He's gonna be with Apple actually
Excites a pair up on a flank point flip though Germany in control help bars waiting for Sweden now
QRXU goes down to Zaru. Like you mentioned, Johnny has really come alive in the second round.
Kevser still with the pulse. Don't need it though. No problem for Kevser.
That's the pulse on the med. Goodbye, Ice. Goodbye, MAP.
Germany on their final limbs here as Kevser is forced to hit the recall.
They pushed Germany all the way off the point and get the cap.
Germany's going to circle back in here though. No real big ultimates.
They got a touch. Akku gets in there luckily in time.
Over time now ticking down as Admiral looks for a catnap.
There is even a Polish shot here from Zorro.
And he's just doing so much damage on the side as Admiral comes out with one,
but S-H-H gets the trade. Any day of the week can take that if you're the cat.
Take that trace right out of the mix.
The Q-R-X-U takes down Zorro from the sky.
Another brief trade is now a three on three ensues.
Over there, Cam on Willis now as he goes in for the 1v1 versus Ice.
But now Germany, they're forced to push Sweden to their limits.
still 99% persuaded. Amazing post gone by SXJ needs the Germany still
contest this one they brought it back limit break down from Eissner.
Can't deploy it if he wants to but maybe want to buy their time here a little bit.
Force last fight if they could maybe build the Ketunar. Can't nap those for
Abel as soon as Germany ends up getting out of position Abel is gonna dunk
someone in that death plane.
Nice note, aerial drop. They're looking for Willis. A Katnap coming in.
Akku, not fighting too much there. On even as April though.
Okay, both Katnaps, one fighting with Successful.
Curex, he's off the map. S6J comes up with a kill, so we get a 4v4.
Limit breaks are from both demons. I've just carved the Hellfire in half and
just so much pressure on the supports to keep the tanks alive.
Skyle caught off in the frayers, Germany, bringing it to 99 as well.
Can someone touch here? Willis on the point here.
Where's the ult from, Bill?
Kevster's got a post, Zara's also going to launch in a bowler in a second.
Postbomb misses, an uncharacteristic whiff there from Kevster,
but he's still piling on the pressure.
SXJ with a postbomb in the front as he just runs through Sweden.
Am I going to go into a third?
In one of those chaotic sanctums I think I've ever casted.
I mean what a ridiculous back and forth. The small details indeed, it was the narrowest of
comebacks from Germany when they hit that post bomb and they had to touch in the middle of the round
and then they hold on to that as well. They backed away with the limit break, they played patience,
students set up for the big engage as they looked to recapture the point of that final fight,
but Germany held strong, they traded out more favorably for them and they tied things up on
really impressive comeback from Germany in that one so both teams really throwing haymakers here back and forth
it's gonna be close we all know it
teepees out, same style
Zorro with the Freya, QRXU Bastion
very different topography though
this bastion has so much more room to move here Johnny
especially around this central pavilion
Looks like he wrecks you on the high ground. Willis with some nice fancy footwork there, gets away from the Bastion initially.
That's the third form deployed here. You can see that Germany is withdrawing a little bit with this ability not available for them here.
Sweden, now look to flank around, utilizing this fray apart from Kepter. Willis going to the next line up.
Oh look at that damage.
Bro, Kepter is just feasting right now. No fork, no knife, no problem.
I mean, that's the stuff.
This is what you want from a Kevster on a stage like this.
Sweden want to make it back.
Want to make it up to themselves almost.
In Overwatch World Cup.
They've been so good at setting up Kevster for success here.
Taking their time to set up the correct lanes, the right space for them.
And this time it's Willys flanking around here. Kevster is operating on the other direction.
Post bomb for Kevster again. Oh, he dropped the point. Oh, drop the point.
Oh, dearie me. I'm like a bait almost Johnny.
Baiting the trap, but their trap closes, shuts it.
We'll take that. Decent percent.
Yes, it's a mistake there from Sweden. They give up the point there, Germany gets some progress.
But it almost feels like Kevster is invisible.
And that is up to his timing. He's so good at fighting his time, waiting for the right moment to strike.
right and then when he blinks in there Germany are fully committed to what's
going on in the meantime instead still though both teams trading back and
forth here we don't with the more favorable open attack at least
and SHJ live up to one of the best traces against Kevster they both have
pulse you'll see how much value they can get
they get low and slow though in Germany right now they managed to find a whole stick
from Kevster. Decent damage but no initial kill.
Limit break comes out for Ice as well. And this is just an old best in the moment.
I mean there's going to be a rush on the point too. The can man from Admiral
is going to secure the kill on to the Kirikou. A swift end for Germany's offence here.
A sweet enough to 70% Johnny.
I'm just running out for Germany now to get back into this opening map. They have a kitchen rush
which is going to give a tremendous advantage if it dropped them to the worst of points.
That will essentially mean that they can capture the point relatively freely here,
but it's about what comes after that, because Sweden, there will be one teamfight win away from securing the opening map.
Oh, devastating.
That is the pick that you want to see if you're Sweden.
Okay, and now it's only Akku, just so much weight on his shoulders right now to try and heavily lick this team in terms of healing.
healing. QRXU is going to go down. Ice gets ejected from the mech. It's just not enough.
Sweden a 2-1 victory on Nepal. And Smile across the face of Zoro there too. That opening pick.
Beautiful. They know their style so well. They play this pick-oriented style
with Kevster waiting in the wing from the tracer. Zoro playing the Freya. A couple of
The bolt combined together with the tracer wrapping around.
That's enough to secure a pick.
And Vibras is for scenarios.
So likely Coastal Team fights out.
Germany.
Nice comeback on Sanctum, but this cluster is not going to disappear.
There'll be a thorn in your side the entire series long.
And they need to find a way to surpass him.
Thorn?
Is that it?
Is that what you're going to give him?
A thorn?
Not a lance or anything?
A small thorn?
An amse in your side?
Yeah, I was thinking other pointy objects that you used.
Well, I think it's a bit sly. If you come around the side with a lance, that's not very sly.
OK, not as quiet. If you are watching on one of our Playover Watch channels, stick around if you want to watch Hero 54 panel.
But if you want to keep watching the games, head over to OWU underscore eSports.
And yeah, we'll see you there.
As we get ready for the second map here.
between Sweden and Germany, see what Germany has planned when it comes to their map choice now, they, of course, pick Nepal.
Before me, a detailed blog, we'll be doing a lot more, but we really want to hear from all of you.
If there are things you're curious about, questions, like let us know on social media, keep being vocal,
vocal, Johanna mentioned it, but like the heroes community has been loud, like
there's a joke on almost every Blizzard official tweet, the first message is
bring back heroes. So like please keep sharing all that, that is the best way to
help James's team in this game we all love. Yeah we love it, we see it and thank
Thank you.
Woo!
What?
I'm hyping you up.
Dude, I'm hyped.
I'm hyped for you too.
All right.
Well, thank you.
Just for the extra time, we would be remiss to not mention Warcraft 3.
Have any of the people here actually played the demo yet?
A few people?
Did you have fun?
Perfect.
it. So everyone else go, the line is really long though. So maybe take a break and then
do it. But I'm really thrilled, Brad. You are one of the most entertaining people we
get to work with. You're just a blast. And when learned that this was coming, it was
just like your passion for Warcraft 3 is palpable. So I was wondering, I know you're
doing other panels, just tell us a little bit about who you are in your background with
RTS in Warcraft? I played Warcraft 3 since I was around, I don't know, like 8 or 9 or something.
And I've been playing it every day, up until now, and I wouldn't have even gone into video games.
I thought I was going to play professionally in Warcraft 3, and then I lost, then I needed a job,
And so then I ended up just doing the only thing that I had skill set for, which was RTS games,
and it ultimately led to just working on Warcraft 3 now, which is, you don't really know how life's
going to play out until it does. And yeah. You mentioned your brief tenure as a competitive
player you found a photo that is just a light fault tell us this photo when this
took place what was going on it's a little baby Brad is amazing this was
yeah in 2009 for WC China I was actually not competing for Warcraft 3 for
this one this was for company of heroes shout out the company heroes oh yeah but
yeah I was like 19 at the time so you know RTS games have just been a part of
my whole life and you know competition and playing like it's when the beefy
like I don't know like I just love it you are in an entertainment match later
BlizzCon is brought to you by Fanta lit-smacking deliciousness watch a Fanta
Nintendo Switch 2, NVIDIA GeForce RTX Game Changer.
Greetings, BlizzCon. It's time to embrace your inner salvation.
I'm Kenny Hudson, senior game producer and your host for the hour.
You all got to see a glimpse of our newest hero in action a few hours ago, but now it's
It's time to really get to know him.
When we craft a new Overwatch hero, it takes creators from every discipline.
We build a strike team to cohesively take an idea from paper to final build.
We call in narrative, art, and game design to get things off the ground.
Then animation, sound, and VFX and more jump in to make a hero come alive.
from that strike team are here, working in the shadows,
very excited to dive into the creation of Hero 54 Doctrine.
We're gonna start things off with narrative,
and boy, there is a lot to unpack here.
Please give a big welcome to our narrative designer,
Eleni Rivera.
I'm really excited to be here, I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited.
My name is Elinir Rivera, and I am a narrative designer on Overwatch.
And I want to address the shadow in the room.
As you may notice, doctrine is really giving vampire, but he's not actually one, right?
Let's break down how we even got to this.
One day, our lead narrative designer, Miranda Moyer, wondered aloud, what a vampire would
look like in this universe.
How could we mix Overwatch's futurism and technology with a folklore archetype
and still stay grounded and believable?
The answer ended up being doctrine.
He's hyper-intelligent, eccentric, and a visionary.
No idea is too grand.
He's sophisticated, magnetic, and poetic.
Jim Carrey's a quiet certainty that his choices and his beliefs are correct, no matter the
human cost or casualties involved.
As you saw in the opening ceremony cinematic, Dr. Jim's been locked up a long time for
his crimes, but his story doesn't begin in the halls of Grimswatton prison.
It actually starts in Zimbabwe, right before the Omnic Crisis.
After the death of his parents,
Dr. was left to care for his younger brother,
who suffered from an incurable ailment.
Even the best scientists and doctors couldn't help him.
So, Dr. took things into his own hands
by mastering cybernetics and bioengineering in pursuit of a cure.
But no matter your intelligence or dedication,
The ability to restore life to dying cells takes energy.
It takes sacrifice.
I'm not going to give away spoilers,
but it was bad enough that Anna, Mari, and Freya Scove
threw him in the depths of Grimzotten,
where he's been ruminating on that particular interaction.
If you're doing the Omnic Crisis Mat at home,
you're probably wondering how doctrine looks this good
for being 70 to 80 years old.
His technology can turn the clock back
by draining the life force from others.
It's a very questionable skin care routine.
I'm not going to lie.
The effort put forth to break him out of prison
begs the question,
why him and why now?
Do fish and doctrine go way back
with a history rooted in the advanced studies
of ungodunous synergies, as well as some surprising shared beliefs.
To them, their causes are righteous and undeniably correct, no matter the destruction that they
may cause.
Now that he's free from Grimm's body, that can't possibly bode well for Overwatch or
the rest of the world.
So I guess you'll have to tune in and see what happens.
Thanks, Eleni.
I'm sure whatever doctrine is up to is 100% above the level.
APPLAUSE
Now, we're going to throw it over to the Prince of Darkness,
or Prince of Sunshine, who went dark for Hero 54,
Mr. Dion Rogers.
This is awesome. Hello, everyone. It's so great to be back at BlizzCon, introducing
you all to our next hero.
Elleny did an amazing job showing what's inside
Dr. In's brilliant mind.
And I'm here to take you through the ways
we made sure all that edge and elegance showed up
on the outside.
The art team kept a few traits at the forefront
of our minds when designing Dr. In's overall look.
No matter how brutal his crimes get,
we wanted him to look dignified and polished while doing it.
For us, it's vitally important that you can tell he's capable,
intelligent, and dangerous with one look,
especially in the hero trailer.
He didn't start off that way, though.
Our initial concept was more of a straightforward scientist character
with a lab coat, glasses, kind of an academic vibe.
As Ellenie mentioned earlier,
once we wonder what a vampire would look like in the world of Overwatch,
We went down that road.
It was like a light bulb went off for us.
Well, maybe more of a candelabra if you're sticking in that world.
Either way, it was a breakthrough.
We took the high fantasy concept of a vampire character
and married it into the tech-heavy world of Overwatch.
And bringing those two worlds together led us right here,
doctrine and all this genius Gothic glory.
His overall look draws from vampires and pop culture.
And you can see a lot of the scientific inspiration in his final design, too.
His cape intentionally looks like a lab coat.
We kept the glasses, because everyone knows glasses make you look pretty cool.
Beyond the drip. He looks young, doesn't he?
But we know he's about a century old,
old, so his facial features and expressions reflect that of an old soul.
And his cybernetic accessories send a loud message.
All that tech belongs to him, was created by him, and is the materialization of his
greatest weapon, his mind.
Creating a design that celebrated doctrine's culture was really important to us.
We decided to have him hail from Zimbabwe, both to represent our community and fans
from Africa, and to develop a shared heritage,
creating a built-in bond that gives doofus a believable reason
to put his trust in doctrine.
And it smooths over the awkwardness of planning a coup against talent, I guess.
We settled on this effortless hairstyle with ornaments and gold jewelry,
yet another hint, doctrine is high class and maybe a little high maintenance.
When thinking about how to visually represent a culture in overwatch,
we can't pull from what the culture looks like today.
We do a time jump and theorize what that culture might look like
in overwatch's optimistic future.
In this case, we leaned into tech and
opulence to represent Zimbabwe in overwatch's universe.
Speaking of tech, that's another huge part of doctrine's entire deal.
He has a lot of interest in cybernetics
attached to his arms that are all his own designs.
But one Pacific colony arises above them all.
As you can see, we went a little baddy with these designs.
Drone's drones are ultra-high-tech assistants
that help him build his cybernetics.
They're helpful and dutiful to their master and his allies.
But these drones are much less pedimental to Drone's enemies.
For that part, I'm going to hand it over to someone
who knows a thing or two about bloodthirsty supports.
Our doctrines hero designer, Scott Kennedy.
What's up, BlizzCon? I'm so excited to be here.
When the team started building our Doctrine's Kit, we asked ourselves an important question.
What does it really mean to be a support hero?
Sure, you're keeping your team healed and out of the spawn room,
but you're also responsible for giving your team
every advantage you can.
With Doctrine, we wanted to see if we could take the support role
to different and maybe more sinister places.
Having heard about his fuel in the world,
you can probably guess that Doctrine
isn't a pacifist support hero.
His kit rewards precise accuracy to keep his allies alive
while taking out the opposition.
The biggest thing that sets our new support hero
apart from other heroes
is a simple yet devastatingly strong ability we call Infuse.
Infuse is doctrine's secondary fire.
It has two charges that can either strengthen
or alter other abilities within his kit.
Knowing when to use or save your Infuse charges
is the key to mastering our new hero.
Let's start with this primary fire, though.
Doctrine wields the Eternal Scepter.
It's a mid-range hit-scan weapon that damages enemies and heals allies,
like a more lethal take on Ana's biotic rifle.
But let's take a look at it when you infuse the primary fire.
It turns into a more formidable version of itself, creating a larger, more powerful piercing
blast.
This makes it a useful tool for healing up allies and finishing off enemies.
While infusing your primary fire can be powerful,
there are times when saving those charges
for other abilities can have an even greater impact.
When creating this hero, we also wanted
to provide a unique utility that revolves around speed,
but not the kind that you're used to.
That's where his faithful flying drones come in.
We call this ability Invigorating Drones.
Using it sends drones to aid an ally,
granting them increased attack speed for six seconds.
These drones won't solve all of your team's problems though.
Giving bonus attack speed to a Hanzo that's only hitting walls
isn't going to do your team much good.
If you want even more value out of invigorating drones,
try infusing them.
When infused, they grant attack speed to your ally and to yourself.
Whether you use that power for quicker healing or quicker bloodshed, that's up to you.
If you find yourself in danger while inflicting that bloodshed, there's a movement ability
to help you avoid an untimely end.
Shrouded momentum.
Drone and his drones block incoming fire, granting damage reduction as he rushes away
from danger.
However, sometimes a quick escape isn't enough.
When Shroud of Momentum is infused, you gain even more movement speed and full flight to
take off into the night.
You can fly away from your problems
and back into the loving arms of your other support.
Of course, spending your infused charges
always comes with a cost.
Use them too early on other abilities
and you might find yourself grounded
when you need an escape.
Now, flight is cool and all that,
but doctrine's true masterpiece is his ultimate,
Deliverance.
And let yourself pass it!
Doctrine unleashes his drones, summoning a ravenous swarm that moved across the battlefield.
His drones peel away to seek out nearby allies and enemies, delivering very different feats
depending on who they find.
get healed and gain over health, while enemies have their life force drained from them, reducing
their maximum health by up to 50% for eight seconds.
Now, before you get the wooden stakes out and ask for a nerf, know that deliverance
is more disruptive than deadly.
Its true strength comes from tipping the scales of battle by empowering allies and weakening
foes at the same time.
At his core, Doctrine is an ideal choice for support players who want to influence every
fight through precision and strategic decision-making.
Success with Doctrine comes from landing your shots, managing your infused charges, and
knowing exactly when to empower your team and have feeble your enemies.
And even though he spent a long, long time in Grimm's modern prison, Doctrine plays surprisingly
well with others.
who thrive on attack speed will want him in their corner, making him a powerful partner
for aggressive teammates looking to press an advantage.
But look at me, tank players.
Increased attack speed doesn't mean you can win a 1v5, okay?
Oh, my mic's off.
Oh, there you go.
Now, this whole time, you've been seeing and hearing the work of our next two panelists,
and you didn't even know it.
Now you do, and you're about to know more.
Kyle and Donovan, get up here and give the people more doctrine.
Music
Hello BlizzCon!
It is awesome to be here.
I'm Kyle DeSanche, and I'm one of the animators on the Overwatch team.
And I'm Donovan Robinson, audio designer.
We are here representing massive teams of people who make heroes, maps,
and really all of Overwatch come to life.
When we start the sound design for any new Overwatch hero,
the audio team gets a narrative brief describing their personality, traits, and backstory.
We're also given terms that define their character.
Production is poetic, sophisticated, grim.
It's our job to create a pile of sounds that give off these vibes.
But for me, it was more than that.
The sounds I created for Doctrine are more than just a list of words.
They're extensions of the things I love in my daily life.
Orchestration is something I'm deeply passionate about.
For a hero like Mizuki, I dipped into flutes and wind instruments.
But for Doctrine, I used orchestral strings
to really bring out the class and chaos in this design.
...
...
...
...
...
...
So, when you're playing, keep an eye out for these dramatic sounds embedded in his tech
forward kit.
Something else you hear a lot when you're playing or running from doctrine are his footsteps.
Unique footsteps with life and character are important in Overwatch.
We try to make sure you can identify the hero hunting you down even if you can't see them.
of Reinhardt's clanking armor or Genji's soft ninja steps.
Doxtrin is no exception.
He's a fancy guy, but his fully capture
included more mundane items.
I recorded footsteps, clothing sounds,
and dramatic cape swishes for Doxtrin.
Using clothes and shoes, you'd find in any store.
And with a lot of movement on my part.
All right, so I got a bunch of clothes here on me.
We're about to actually start recording.
We got all the layout right here.
pants, jackets, all this type of stuff. Another leather jacket that's going to sound good too.
Some pants, everything for this character. More leather, a nice denim jacket. We're going to
record all of it and see how it comes out. We can. We've got this big tarp. This can probably be
used for the cape. It's got a big cape for just a few whatever. We'll probably get some type of
We're in full equipment now. We're ready.
We got the leather, we got the gloves, the pants, we're all ready now. We got this.
This is a big slab of concrete that we use for every footstep in the game.
We use it for every single one.
Widowmaker, tracer.
Oh, they all use this one slide.
We get different shoes, whatever shoes we might be using.
We just step on it.
Over and over again.
And different ways, jumping, stuffing,
all types of stuff.
These are just the base sounds for his footsteps, though.
We integrated the sounds of the drones to really help define his movement and give you a heads
up that he's working just around the corner.
Kyle's going to tell us a bit more about these drones too.
Thanks, Donovan.
Animation and sound design work very closely together.
As a new Overwatch hero evolves from a concept to a playable, identifiable, and possibly slightly
terrifying part of the roster, Donovan made it look easy, but both of our teams go through
multiple rounds of iterations to find the best possible way.
to make a hero look, sound, and feel good to play.
When the animation team was first looking at doctrine's concept,
we knew one of the biggest challenges would be animating his drones
without them feeling too busy or noisy or distracting.
They always had a bat-like shape to fit his vampy vibe,
and our job was to figure out how to make them look like a true colony of little assistants
without varying too far in the fantasy land.
So, let's take a deeper look at the animation in a video starring early in development,
very low-poly doctrine.
So, this is one of the first tests we did.
We wanted to match the concept with that S-shaped curve that the drones made around us are.
This is pretty cool.
Pretty promising.
One of the things we ran into, though, especially when we zoomed the camera out like this, is it kind of starts to fall apart a little bit.
You're starting to lose a little bit of that shape, and you kind of might be a little unsure as to what you're looking at.
That led us to try something a little bit different. Let's take these drones, let's make a group of them, and let's hover them around his arm.
That way, his left arm is what actually controls these drones, so it feels more tied together.
We broke it up so the drones bounced in their own independent way,
that way they each feel like their own little character.
This again was a pretty encouraging test that we did.
We felt like it fit, it wasn't too distracting,
and it didn't take away from Doctrine himself.
With this kind of new test, we wanted to go back to that first one
and see if we could maybe mix the two.
Is there a way to get this to feel right?
So we went back to that S-shaped curve,
but we removed the cycling where it needs to go
from the top of the shoulder down to the end.
We tried shrinking them, doing less drones, more drones, adjusting their size,
anything at this stage to try and find what feels right for the character.
After we did those, we decided, let's try one more big brand idea.
This is when we put them in a big circle shape behind them.
They're constantly circling around, and it makes a pretty cool vibe for this guy.
But again, like I mentioned earlier, it starts to take away from him a little bit,
and we want these drones to feel like a part of him.
we don't want them to feel like they're bigger than him.
So we took that circular shape, we shrunk it down, and we got it back to his arm,
since that's what we want to feel is most tied to drones.
Once we knew kind of what we wanted to do, we started doing some animation tests.
How much bat-like behavior can we get out of these drones?
These drones are just a single joint.
There's no wings, there's no flapping.
So how much can we do with just that one bone?
We took that animation, we moved it over to his arm with multiple drones now, and we liked
how this felt.
It felt like they were really alive, they were really a part of him, and he can call
on them whenever he wants.
Still did feel a little bit distracting though.
So one of the final things we tested is what if they attached to his arm and he can call
on them anytime he needs them.
He can reorient them, adjust them, all these kinds of things.
This also was a pretty cool test, but it would adjust the design on his arm because the drones
now need to slot in with them.
All this is to say that while none of these individual tests are what we went with, all
of them are needed for us to find what feels right for the character, and we're pretty
proud of where we ended up.
From Donovan, myself, and all the creative teams behind Overwatch, we hope you enjoyed
this little peek into our process, and that you love doctrine just as much as we do.
Thank you so much for being here, and we can't wait for you to play doctrine.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good job.
Whether you're on the show floor here at BlizzCon
or ready to queue up at home,
you'll get the chance to try out doctrine in all of his glory
with a hero trial that runs from today through September 14th.
If you are here with us in Anaheim,
you get to test something exciting we've been cooking up.
reworks for two Overwatch heroes who needed a refresh.
Both Roadhog and Sombra's reworks are playable on the show floor this weekend.
For everyone else, you'll get to play them in Season 5.
We have a familiar face here to give you all the details about those reworks.
Associate Game Director, Alec Dawson.
I hope you can see all of the love and care that has gone into doctrine.
We are so excited for him to come out next season.
I'm here to talk about something a little bit different, though.
I'm here to talk about two of our most challenging reworks, Roadhog and Sombra.
start with Roadhog. Our approach for Roadhog started with two primary goals,
reduce the amount of value tied up in his chain hook combo, and also give him
new ways to directly help his team. Some of the elements that define Roadhog as
a tank, like his take a breather, are still intact. But we've made him a more
dynamic tank, one that doesn't feel as frustrating to play against. Roadhog's
primary fire is now a double shot burst shotgun. Spreading out the damage into two chunks.
With this new primary fire, Roadhog is still a big threat up close, but there's a level of precision
required, landing both shots to quickly burst down enemies. Roadhog still has this trusty
chainhook at the ready. But the one-shot combo I guarantee everyone in this room
has fallen victim to, is hard to achieve due to these primary fire changes.
Within that small gap between primary fire shots, you can use reactive
abilities to get out of danger. Roadhog's prey will also land farther away from him,
making it more difficult to secure kills on full health heroes.
Make no mistake, though.
Chain Hook is still a powerful displacement ability
that can secure kills and catch out-of-position enemies.
These changes to siphon a little value from the hook combo,
so Roadhog isn't so one note in a fight always looking for a pick,
but we actually added a new ability
that gave us room to add something fresh to Roadhog's kit.
In comes Roadhog's new secondary fire ability, Trash Compactor.
He'll absorb enemy projectiles for two seconds and compress them into an explosive ball of scrap,
which will be tossed back at enemies.
Trash Compactor is a valuable space-making tool that enables Roadhog to protect himself and teammates.
They can even land a big chunk of damage if used just at the right time.
These changes and new additions to Roadhog's kit should make a more flexible take as a
healthier place in the game overall.
Now, let's talk about that next challenge, and one that included a role switch.
Let's chat Sombra.
This invisible hacker assassin has been one of the more controversial heroes ever since
your introduction. Coming into Sombra's rework, the team knew we had to take bigger
swings and break up that triangle of her invisibility, lethality, and hacked
silencing effect. As you probably noticed in the opening ceremony, Sombra is now a
support hero. By moving her over to support, we can keep some of the most
enjoyable parts of her kit intact. Sombra can still have stark utility in her kit,
it, but in a role where it's more appropriate.
And just like with Roadhog, some things are staying the same.
Sombra's translocator has a shorter distance but still allows for tactical disappearances.
Her machine pistol remains a proficient short-range weapon that damages enemies, and EMP is also
essentially the same, and still offers massive opportunity for coordinated teams to take advantage
of.
The biggest changes in Sombra's rework is the removal of hack and virus to make room
for abilities that solidify her identity as a very active support hero.
One of those abilities is Hotfix, which grants healing over time to an ally target.
Hotfix comes with two charges and works differently from some of the healing mechanics that you're
used to.
When Sombra applies hotfix to an ally, it dishes out instant healing, but most of the
value is in its healing over time.
Hotfix's healing reserve has up to 200 healing and can last for 12 seconds.
That means Sombra can use hotfix proactively and assist an ally about to make a bold engage.
Sombra also won't have as much healing upkeep as other supports, which enables her to still
go off on her own adventures. She can disable health packs or position herself to initiate
an engagement for the enemy team. In one way, she wins those engagements is by using cyberspace,
which replaces Sombra's old virus ability. Instead of applying damage to one target,
Cyber space creates a zone that heals allies and damages enemies.
That's not all, though.
Enemies within cyberspace are also weakened, which reduces their healing and damage output
by 50%.
Cyber space is a multi-purpose ability that can finish off low health enemies, dampen enemy
ultimates, and can create an advantageous area for your team to fight in.
It'll be up to you to find the ideal moment to spring cyberspace onto the enemy team.
Sombra's rework keeps her identity intact while introducing new ways to enjoy her kit.
She's a very active support who can put her thumb on the scale to turn the fight in her team's favor.
While it may take a little bit to get used to her new role and abilities,
learning to take advantage of her full capabilities is an absolute blast.
Once it clicks, we hope you'll love it.
As always, please give us your feedback.
Once you're able to try these reworks,
either on the show floor at BlizzCon
or at home when season five launches.
All of you help us make Overwatch a better game every day.
Thank you.
Can we get our striking back out here?
Now, you saw a lot of cool stuff today, presented by some of my favorite people, but we represent
a fraction of the folks who put their creativity
and heart into doctrine.
That's how it goes for all of our heroes.
Everyone on team four contributes in their own way.
The strike team just carries the torch in the beginning,
and we don't mind public speaking.
We'd like to thank everybody who had a hand
in bringing doctrine to life.
Guess what?
That includes you too.
Our team gets so much inspiration and motivation
from the Overwatch community,
especially when we get to see you having a blast
here at BlizzCon.
We're listening and we're always learning
from your feedback, from all of us on the Overwatch team.
We hope you have a devilishly fun time
playing doctrine in season five and beyond.
Thank you, have a good night,
and let's make a great game.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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The battle cry to give your deity plus two plus two is a really easy way to buff your
your deity so they'll be more powerful when it comes into play.
But there are lots of different ways to buff it throughout the game.
Another example of it is drifting sacrifice.
Drifting sacrifice is a tier 3 aberration with reborn and death rattle give your deity
plus 2 plus 1.
This is especially powerful in yashiraj lobbies as you can use it to resummon your drifting
sacrifices to get even more stats onto your old god.
Now, deity is one core mechanic in aberration, but they have another mechanic, which is discard.
And if you have a warlock enjoyer out here, this might seem pretty familiar.
What you can do is take various cards and repurpose them by throwing them away into something more powerful.
Let's take an example with brainrotter.
Now Brain Rotter takes advantage of our Activate keyword, which is our newest keyword we added this season.
And normally Activate will cost gold for you to do some sort of effect.
But a lot of the aberration ones actually won't cost you any gold and instead will allow you to discard a card for their effect.
In this case, buffing your deity.
There are lots of other ways that you can be discarding cards.
Another good example of that is Mindbending Recruiter.
Now, Mind Vending Recruiter is a Tier 4 aberration that will allow you to discard a card to get a random aberration.
This is especially useful if you're trying to build out your board to find those pieces that you're missing,
as well as it can be useful for charging various discard synergies.
Now, in addition to cards that will get rid of stuff, there's stuff that wants to be gotten rid of.
So a good example of that is Feted Corroder and Sludge Corrosion.
So Sludge Corrosion is a tavern spell. You'll be able to find this and buy it in your games.
And it says give your minions plus one plus one.
But if you were to discard this, it will cast it twice instead,
which can be a really powerful effect for your buff of the board,
especially if you've been buffing your tavern spells throughout the game.
But it can give you a nice target to throw away that you don't really feel bad about.
And there's various ways you can generate it such as fed a Corouter so you can find lots of them throughout your game.
Now, let's take another example.
And Mindbending Gersha. Now this one, you don't want to discard this card, but it will reward you every time you discard a card
by giving all of your minions less than 3 plus 3.
So there's various ways that you can hook into discard to buff up your board.
Now, in addition to the new minions, we also have new heroes.
The first of those heroes is Dressed Agath.
Now, Dressed Agath comes along with the Hero Power Incubate that will allow you to discard
a card to get a random aberration.
This is particularly useful in the early game to flail out your board, as well as getting
those easy activations on the various synergies that you have.
The second of the new heroes that we have is Kithix.
Kiddix has the Hero Power Dark Ritual, which will get you two random minions, but when
you play one of them, it will automatically discard the other.
However, if you're clever, you can synergize it with other effects to be able to choose
one of those cards and discard them.
Oh, press that again.
We'll get there.
So we only synergize it with other effects in order to discard them to be able to get
those benefits. Now, in addition to that, we also have lots of trinkets that we're
going to be bringing with aberrations for this season. Let's take a look at some
lesser trinkets. So to begin, we have Hammer of Twilight, which will give your
minions plus one attack, and it will improve for every card you've discarded
this game. This can be very useful for any minions that you synergize with,
especially types like Beast or Undead, as those have lots of little minions that
resummon and take advantage of those stats. Kretty Baton will hook into tavern spell synergies
and give you a way to hug your deity every time you cast a tavern spell. We also have portraits,
which are a type of trinket, which gives you a minion and powers them up. In this case,
Mind Slasher Portrait will give you a vicious Mind Slasher, which is a new aberration as well.
And whenever you cast a tavern spell, it will give it your deity plus one plus three. But if
But if you have the Portrait, it will also give those stats to adjacent minions.
We have another Portrait, which is Corrupted Coin Portrait.
This one's gonna give you two Corrupted Coins.
A Corrupted Coin is a collectable spell that you can get in the Tavern, which is a Cor-
It will give you two gold, however you discard it, it will increase your Maximum Gold by two instead.
So if there's any Oil Enjoyers, this is the way that you can get lots of oil.
Now, onto the greater trinkets.
We have Shashar Shrine, which is hard to say.
After you discard a spell, you're going to get a random aberration.
This works really well with those tavern spells we saw earlier that reward you for being discarded,
and it can hook into that again, helping you find all the pieces you need.
Evil Experiment will give you a DEAD reborn, which is especially powerful on Yasharaj,
because that lets you double up on that death rattle
and get lots of powerful resummons.
Next, we have sludge portrait,
which will give you a sludge corrosion,
which is that card we talked about earlier.
And whenever you discard a card,
we'll give you another, and another, and another.
So you will always have fuel ready to throw away.
Some of these trinkets will also power up your deities
and make them more powerful.
A great example of that is Mask of the Ancient Ones
that will turn your D&E golden.
And just like all of our effects
that goldenize in Battlegrounds,
they will have double the stats and double the effects.
So for Cthun, it will give double its stats
split in front stall minions,
and Yasharovs will resurrect the first four.
So that's all I'm gonna show right now.
However, if you would like to know even more
about aberrations, about how we designed it,
as well as answering some questions
that we've collected from the community about Battlegrounds,
there's going to be another panel tomorrow
I believe 315 where we'll be talking about all of what goes into designing battlegrounds
But that's it for me
And if you would like to play with aberrations yourself if you're here at blizzcon right now
You can play with them on the show floor
But if you're at home, you'll be able to play them when they go live on September 22nd
That's very soon
So that's it for me. Thank you so much blizzcon
I'm gonna pass it back to core to talk about all the cool things coming to hearstone over the next year
Thank you.
Yay! Thank you so much, Mitchell, Ryan, and John.
That was a lot of information. I know.
We had a lot we wanted to show you today, but I know it's probably a little bit difficult to digest it all in the moment.
So, what is actually next?
Let's go ahead and look at everything that we talked about, when it's going to be coming to you all,
and on what timeline you can mix that so you know you'll be prepared.
Alright, so here we've got a roadmap of December 20, 2026 through April 2027.
First up, we've got patch 36.6, which is of course the Rain of the Black Empire expansion reveal.
We've got new event set cards, the new Battlegrounds minion type, Aberration.
Of course, you can play that here today on the show floor, as well as our first iteration of the new event type, Black Market.
coming in 37.0, we have Rain of the Black Empire
expansion launch, we have a new arena season
as well as the new Hearthstone journey,
which Ryan talked to us about today.
37.2, we have another battleground season,
we have some Winter Veil celebration, new event cards,
and then the first time we'll be seeing
the new 2v2 tavern brawl, it's going to be in 37.2.
37.4, this is our mini set timing,
so here we have four classes, Demon Hunter,
Hunter, Shaman, Death Knight, and Death Knight. Yes, we weren't lying. There are far too death
knight class sets coming. It just so happens that monk is coming after that, but you know, it happens.
We also have another new arena season, and then Black Market will be coming back for the second
time. 37.6, another new expansion reveal. We're going to be a little, I'll tell you more about that later.
New event set cards, and then Hearthstone War Chief. That's the first time you're going to see
see that tavern brawl.
And then 38.0, expansion launch, the brand new monk class,
which was really rude of them because they said,
you can announce it.
You just can't say anything about it.
So that's been tough, but we'll have more to tell you
about that early next year.
And we're very, very excited to show you more
about the monk class.
Well, of course, that refresh, that rotation,
and an arena season, everything that traditionally comes
with a brand new year in Hearthstone.
And then at 38.2, we have Battleground Season 15.
I don't know if you can see right there.
We're gonna have another new Battlegrounds minion type
with the Pandaren.
So that's two brand new Battlegrounds minion types
in rapid succession.
Who knows where Battlegrounds is?
They are really, really talented.
They make incredible stuff.
As well as we're gonna have the first iteration
of the new event type boss fight.
So it's a lot.
Take pictures, you'll see this graphic along.
But we're just so excited to be able to tell you
about all of this that we've had in the works for so long.
Thank you again for being here with us today.
Stick around if you want to see some more
Artstone Girl Championship matches.
There are two more matches today.
Go and check out the Battlegrounds demo
of your gear on the show floor with us
and you haven't done so.
You can try out the new Aberration minion type.
The number of the last, thank you all for being here
and we will see you in the tavern.
Have a great BlitzCon, everybody.
Thank you.
very, very close to my heart. I'm very, very excited for those effects, look very, very
powerful as well and just fantastic flavour as well.
Yeah, really looking forward to seeing what else we can check out here. As Korra did just
say, there's the battleground stuff on the studio floor, just over, I'm pointing like
you can see where I'm pointing to, you can't, my apologies, but it is here along with plenty
of more things to check out for Hearthstone and of course many, many other games, so really,
really looking forward to that and I do think that we can check out some of the
new cards as well I think yeah we are gonna check out some of that so let's
take a look at what we have to see here we can get a few little opinions from
some of this so we do see in Mother it's a nine cost battle cry reduce the cause
of a card in your hand by five this continues to the left and right with one
less reduction we literally just talked about this backstage so what do you
think of this pocket I think it's a very very interesting new mechanic here it
It means that you have to be a lot more conscious about where your card is in your hand, which is something that we're not that experienced with, apart from potentially outcast in Beaman Hunter, but this is like the opposite, like in-cast, you could call it.
Yeah, I'm interested to see how these cards play out.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see for me whether we can consistently get maybe that 9 cost reduced a little bit, to then just make it a little bit more easy to play itself.
play itself because I imagine this coming out quicker than turn 9 if you not through it I guess
so that's looking pretty good pretty exciting could have some high impact let's take a look
at the next one we're going to check out here wow these are the cards for me
we've been playing arson since the beginning I think the height of arson is every time we get
old gods back in one form or another we've gotten us off kathun yashiraj and yog saran now for me
battle cry and your turn York Suron takes an extra turn for you once per game
probably for the best and is the most exciting because we all know the York
Suron likes to take control and do whatever it pleases but what do you
think of these pocket and I'm most excited personally for that cocoon I do
think the package overall looks incredibly powerful and looks like it
has a lot of competitive viability the York Suron as well I'm I'm interested to
see how that goes because I'm a little bit concerned with some of the outcomes that my
plan out.
Yeah, I'm definitely think I'm already trying to think, okay, even though everything's going
to change, the match will be different, there'll be new cards and so on, but I'm thinking,
how could you set this up to have a almost guaranteed good turn, like as a good extra
turn?
But very, very interesting overall.
Let's see what we've got coming up next.
And yeah, this is just a whole spread of not only those cards, but the one, the supporting
cards as well. As we saw earlier that spawn of Cthun, I think it's going to be vital
in proccing those extra abilities. And also, let's just take one quick second before we
move on to the shadow sculpt. Assemble a minion, it costs two less. We saw some absurd interactions.
Anything that just completely breaks the way that the game works, I'm very excited for.
Like we've been talking about Warlock all week and how that just completely breaks the rules.
And I do think this shadow sculpt with the assemble mechanic goes a step further.
and I'm very excited to see what kind of combinations players can come up with.
Yeah, we also did just talk a little bit backstage about the arrival of the titans,
the draw two spells, refresh six mana crystals, you can only play spells for the rest of the turn.
Very exciting because effectively, as long as you can cast it,
you'll refresh enough crystals to basically make arrival of the titans free,
and then not only draw spells, but then be able to play a lot of stuff without having that mana
rejuvenate it. My eye is instantly drawn to that legendary in the top left corner there. The
Isis said it looks like it synergizes fantastically well with the arrival of the Titans. If you
were to coin that out, double the right or out of the Titans, then all you need to do is play
another three man as well. And suddenly you've got a huge very threatening board. Yeah, I mean,
we will go through every single one. We could believe it or not talk all day about these cards.
However, again, if you want to check this out either, you know, check the, check the VOD,
check everything else of course there'll be all this information up online and on the
Playoffs on the website no doubt so make sure to check them out later to have a little in-depth
look at what you're looking forward to in the very near future in the new expansion but speaking
of looking forward to things we are going to go to a very quick break while we stealth our next
match of the Hearthstone World Championship so don't go anywhere we'll be right back.
Please come as brought to you by MSI.
Take the next step in upgrading your visual experience with MSI's QD OLED monitors.
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Oh
You can watch you guys from the beginning talking about ideas, jamming on different tools and
the tricks that you use to create your own maps.
I don't really have words for it,
but you really just elevated everything.
And I think a lot of the community is gonna be surprised
at some of the cool stuff that's all out there.
And again, the work speaks for itself.
But yeah, I think that's all the time we have right now.
I just want to remind everyone to thank you so much
for all the support through all the years,
all the many, many years, and a quick reminder
that this is all available today.
Hopefully you can, the lineup's pretty long,
but hopefully you can play some of it today,
but you can definitely play tomorrow.
But it's also available today.
And you can purchase it now and have at it.
So thank you so much, thank you everyone,
and enjoy the rest of your BlizzCon.
Thank you.
Shared the hype workshop.
Woo!
BlizzCon is brought to you by Fanta.
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Nvidia GeForce RTX Game Changer.
I don't know, maybe all of them would be great.
I'm level 30.
Maybe the L.O.S.T. maybe.
Yeah, okay.
No dirt.
Oh, big damage.
40, 40.
Wow.
That's nice. That's real nice.
Oh, they're spawning more little dudes.
he was having a big one first I know I just thought of that right now
this guy's actually tough
I started with aggro and he died with aggro.
What?
Spirit and attack power.
That's a crazy decision on that, but seems like it's a good decision.
I got you.
Stop running around.
Listen to me.
I'll pass.
I've not seen any castle lube at all.
No.
That's a good decision.
but seems like it's gonna be a good thing to do.
Oh!
Let's take a second.
I'll pass.
I've not seen any Casper Loo at all.
No.
Stabs.
Oh, stop it.
I'm just saying, I haven't seen a single item.
Alright, we're going straight.
It's a roaming mob.
We're just gonna get it all.
Yeah, pull him out.
Just straight, yeah.
Wopa.
Oh, uh, there's my hands coming.
Oh my God!
I'm distracting.
We're gonna come down those two seconds.
Where's the...
I'm treating you not good now.
Oh, where's the...
Oh, Blizzard, I need you underclap for something.
Any time you have to say, I'm gonna blizzard.
Ready?
I'm gonna break, I'm gonna break, okay?
Underclap, underclap.
Thank you, Blizzard.
I'm trying, I'm trying.
What are you doing?
Wait.
I think it was the thing after all.
No, they're not.
You look like a thing at the ground.
Just see right here.
If not having any A.O.E. is so trippling.
That's so cute.
Yeah, I think it's that.
If you stand in there, it folks up to us.
Okay.
Wait, that's great for you.
Amazing.
Yeah, I think that's really good actually
Yes
No, but I think we're gonna keep going up and up that big staircase over there
Yeah, I think we have to like do all the zones and yeah, oh she and the finally
This is like a really good power lovely
There's a lot of mobs in this place a ton. Oh, we can talk to her
Oh, I think we gotta talk to all four and then they bring the barrier down. Please dispel the barrier
Okay, I did it
What I should dispel it? Well, I just talked to the guy. He just did. Oh, there we go. Yeah, area sound. Whoa big
Okay, come in come ahead
In the hands on now guys now cooking
Let it ride, let it ride, we'll be fine.
Not gonna die.
This is fine.
Not gonna die.
We'll have to stun one as well.
One that got loose?
Oh no.
I got him, I got him, I got him.
Excuse me.
We're good, we're good.
Yeah, we're chilling.
Yeah, yeah.
This is fine.
Wait, so maybe we're gonna kill all the bosses on the side.
Maybe they can probably go in the middle of it.
Maybe. I mean he's just kind of standing there right now if you want to...
Okay, one on right.
Oh, that's a lot of healing.
What?
Oh, I need to...
Wait, it's a dagger. I can't use it.
Oh, that's a lot of smoke on it.
I need that. I 100% need that.
Got it, got it, got it. Okay.
Thank you, Blizzard.
Dude, yeah, that's fine.
Hey, are you guys having fun?
replacing your friend like some little month I got some stuff oh classic I see
what I got this way there's another big guy over here oh it's a weird-looking
thing there's gold I'm staking sense in a little yeah sure
it's normal officer good you good yeah it's fine are you
I'm waiting for some a we friend here right I'm not hitting the little guy
Captain little druid guy whatever whatever I'm gonna run over the run I'm on the boss
bro function
Build the books first books first books first
I got close everywhere
It's shooting, it's shooting, it's shooting something.
Yeah, that's the AOV.
Yeah, that's the AOV. Oh, it hurts.
25-yard range, you gotta run out.
Kinda like Barrett's headed where you have to run
instead of standing immediately in the center of the bottom of the top.
Oh, man.
Oh, man.
Okay, and it goes.
God, it's freemium.
Oh, you got it.
I thought you were on top of me.
Guys, where's the team at?
You can hold by yourself.
We're on it.
Oh, we're going to take a lot of damage, guys.
We're going to take a lot of damage.
Save the state.
I can't believe this.
He'll be.
Oh, can you like, oh, it's a range thing.
Oh, God.
I can't believe this.
I'm a oo-missed block.
I'm hitting with those sticks.
So do we want to stay in the room?
BlizzCon is brought to you by
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["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
Please welcome your BlizzCon 2026 community night host,
Darren DePaul.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
Candy, Candy! Candy! Candy! Candy! Candy! Candy! a bag!!!
Hi, we're back.
It's been a minute.
Welcome to your BlizzCon Community Night 2026.
Whether you are here in our exciting little corner
of the convention center or joining us online,
we have a wonderful show planned for you tonight.
There is a special magic, a certain alchemy that happens.
when someone gets inspired by a Blizzard game or a character,
and they get an idea,
and they say, I'm gonna make that.
And then with a lot of determination,
a lot of skill, a little bit of whimsy,
and with BlizzCon as their goal, they do it.
And it exists in the world for us to enjoy.
And I think that is very special,
Because, and I do not take this lightly, you come to what we do.
You come to these worlds and these characters and these games on your best day.
And maybe they entertain you, maybe they challenge you, maybe you connect with friends, or they
just make you smile.
But also, you come to these games and these worlds and these characters on your lowest
day.
And maybe, just maybe, they make that day a little bit better.
Now I know what you're thinking.
I know what you're thinking.
Who is this old man whose relentless optimism is sheer nightmare fuel?
Hi, I'm Darren.
Oh, no.
Hi.
I do not know what that was.
No, I did not like that.
But I am relentlessly optimistic that some of you did.
I'm an actor.
What gave it away?
I do a lot of voices for Blizzard Characters and some wonderful Blizzard projects.
We counted recently and there are over 160, 160 separate Blizzard Characters that I have
had the privilege of voicing over the past like, ah, over the past, there, through all
all the heirs, you know, characters like Black End for the Horde, and Anuba Rack, and Dundun
the Rat, and Trade Prince Gallowix. Some of you may know me as Reinhardt from Overwatch,
Hermar Down, Cat's Phrase, Azor things I say. I say a lot of things. But for the past
two years, actually, I have been doing a lot of work in the world of Diablo.
For those of you that don't know in Diablo 4, I am the voice of the butcher,
which is doing a lot of thrust meat.
Which is just basically, you know, I'm churning a lot of stuff up in there.
It's just making us alive a smoothie in my throat.
And that is not as good as it sounds.
And it does not sound good.
Also, in Diablo Immortal,
I voice a demon that bombets out other demons,
which is sort of...
I know.
And I am making that noise in a tox.
And it's rented.
And also in Diablo 4, I voice generic tortured denizen of hell because apparently when you
think Darren, you think generic tortured denizen of hell.
Look, all of this is to say that it is a profound honor that my dumb voice and my crazy nerd
energy has found its way into a lot of your lives over the year.
That is not lost on me.
And it is a thrill to be here.
Thank you so much for trusting me with this.
backstage, the cosplayers, the short filmmakers, the artists, the musicians, they're gonna
give you moments of surprise, moments of delight, moments of connection.
Because that's what tonight's about.
To me, that's what BlizzCon is about.
Not the vomiting demon noise, but connection.
That wow that you get if you feel when you've seen outrageous cosplay or beautiful art
or unique short films or music.
And you can say, I was there for that.
I was a part of that.
Everybody back stage, cosplayers, short filmmakers, musicians, we got a poet.
They are here to fill this stage with their talent, their skill, their passion, their
joy.
And I think that is a gift.
And I hope you enjoy it.
Nope!
I am relentlessly optimistic that you will.
Because this is your BlizzCon Community Night 2026!
I will not do that again. I am an old man. So, what's going to happen tonight? In tonight's show, we have four different groups who will each take the stage.
It features a cosplay exhibition, followed by a finalist submission in either art or music or short film.
And then to cap off that group, there will be the four cosplay categories.
The finalists of those four cosplay categories.
And those categories tonight are number one, dynamic duo.
Number two, master crafter. Three, epic effects and four, armories and artifacts.
Folks, it's gonna be good, but I'm not gonna do this alone because look, I'm an
old man, you don't want two hours of me because take it for me, I know I'm a lot.
So, it is my pleasure to introduce tonight's cosplay judges, they're absolute giants in
the industry.
So let's meet them right now.
Up first, she has been cosplay since she was 13 years old, a top 25 finalist in 2018
and 2019.
She is attending her 13th BlizzCon and is one of 13 BlizzCon ambassadors representing
the community Blizzard employees.
She is a specialist in sewn armor crafting.
My friends, say la sera!
Next, the first ever professional cosplayer in India's history is the winner of over 40
awards.
Please welcome Samir Kikapasala.
Yeah, with 18 years of cosplay experience, she brings characters to life through her
costume and prop making company while teaching others to create their own cosplays from scratch.
You may know her as the 2023 Best in Show winner for her Lilith cosplay.
Please give it up for Tiffany Gordon Cosplay.
All the way from beautiful Paris and dressed as none other than the Fisto the Lord of Hatred,
Yo, venu, Sinderis!
And rounding out our judges' chant, the winner, 2013's best in show of war, with over 20 years
of experience and beloved by millions worldwide.
Please welcome Kamori!
Music
Kamori, do you have anything that you'd like to say to the crowd at this particular time?
Kamori, would you like to welcome the crowd?
Thanks so much, Darren. I think I speak for all the cosplay judges that it's a huge honor for us to pick the winners at this year's Community Night.
And we have so many amazing cosplayers coming on stage very soon. Choosing the best of the best won't be definitely easy, but we try our very best to evaluate each participant.
And the winners are based on the following categories,
the quality and difficulty level of the costume,
originality and creativity of the craftmanship,
and also the character resemblance on stage.
And let's begin first by celebrating you, the community.
Thank you so much. Take it away, Darren.
I will take it away.
Our judges are going to be right back, they're going to review our finalists.
I just want to say, just on personal note, I am always blown away by the attention to
detail and the work and just the love that goes into making cosplay.
I can't do that.
I'm an old man.
I read a book, eat a cookie, and go to bed.
And most of the time, it's not even a good cookie.
But my hope for all of you tonight, really, really,
is that you see what's here, and it inspires you.
And you say, I'm going to do that.
I'm going to make some music.
I'm going to make some cosplay.
I might do a short film.
I know that it is not easy, but all you've got to do
is take the first step.
Maybe you just need a little inspiration.
So here is some inspiration for you.
Let's welcome our first cosplay exhibition group
to the stage.
Kara Heeler, High King, Anduin Wrynn.
Wolfie, Rap of the Witch King, Sylvanas.
Hey, Landria.
Night elf, Morticelle, Rymond.
Planet.
Planet Odeo Little Laker.
Aqua Moira Thoracin.
Wilson.
White Shadow, the Lich King armor project.
and a win-win king of Stormwind.
Some drainage as herself.
day money and a 7000 war God
Okidokidok, our first art finalist of the night is up next.
Let's take a look.
What you would be seeing is an incredible Mephisto sculpture
and is brought to us by Marco Venizio.
This sculpture was 3D resin printed, hand painted,
and features integrated LEDs to really bring the hellfire to life.
Thank you, Marco. We're sorry we could not show that.
That was Mephisto Sculpted by Marco Venizio.
And now let's meet the rest of tonight's cosplay exhibition group.
Come on out, everybody!
Peter Burroughs, Silver Moon Socialite.
Lily H. Rios, the Lich King, female version.
Nindragosa, Demon Hunter Miku.
Amazing Jamo, Anduin Rinn.
Amrakus, Carport Brigitte.
Try best bits of blind absolution.
Calamus half Maccarorque
McClurry the classic Fury warrior
Ritality Sylvanas Windrunner
Fantastic work by everybody just getting started, but look, my friends, if there is one thing
that I want you to take away from tonight, it is this.
With so much body paint backstage, wearing a white dinner jacket was not a good idea.
And now, it is time for our first cosplay finalist walk of the evening, and the category
is Dynamic Duo.
These are amazing artists in this category who are sure to delight you, so please welcome
There is no cow level by Darth Valor and Abela Cosplay.
Next, the family that flays together by Harperian Armory.
Whoa!
Oh!
Oh
The fall of the Lich King.
by Zalgirov and Valetian.
Theresa and Arator by RGB Foxy and RGB Wolfie.
Up next, Illidan and Taranda Whisperwind by Aistat and Geekoo.
This is amazing, and we're just getting started.
And by the way, firstly for me, if I get anybody's name on it, if I pronounce it wrong, I seek
your apologies.
I am an old man, as has been previously stated.
Up next, I want to introduce our first finalist for the short film category.
And it is, High Noon, submitted by Barth.
Here we go!
Hi, June!
Hi, Bart!
Hi, June.
Hi, Bar.
Watching these things, the artistry, the work, the heart that goes into it, you know, it's
been seven years since I've been here, but this really feels like coming home.
And I told you, relentlessly optimistic.
So please welcome to the stage our next cosplay exhibition group.
Aurora Kitty, The Butcher.
Niko, Diva, Nocturne Skin.
Casplay, my pet circling.
Lucity, heroes of the storm, the Lyra Saguenar.
The face collector, Necromancer skin from D4.
Branson, underpin strong arm, muscle mythic set.
Ultimately, the creation of art is a very human expression of love.
You put the time in to create something like that, but if you love it, and you hope others
will too, here is some more love for you.
It's some art.
Golden and Garros by Emma Nolan.
This unbelievable work, folks.
It is a meticulous process using red clay, silicone,
plaster molding, followed by air brushing, hand painting,
the installation of the final touches like LED eyes and shaved haircuts.
This is amazing.
Golden and Garrosh by Amano.
It is fantastic work. It is fantastic work.
So let's have some more fantastic work with our next group of Exhibitioners.
Luna Kay, Paladin of the Silver Hand.
Made and ready cosplay, Vendetta.
Wachito, Ember Cosplay.
Tiernan DH.
Highlord Tiernan.
Lisa J. Gaina Proudmoore.
Miss Minty, Cindergrossa Battle Visage.
Pepper, La Lufa, the Gothic Cinnamon, Ophelia, the Morgan Priestess.
Now, in the world of Azeroth,
of Azeroth. The great Merlach-Pullock Plurigal once said,
and it may be controversial, but I agree with him.
I love this side, you have to work.
I'm going to break a hip.
Our next category is master craftsman.
My friends, it is not controversial to say their skill is quite evident.
Let's hear it for part of Hope Juno by Scarlett.
Yeah.
Jack.
Hail boss, Sunstrider by Oshie.
Next, Vendetta Rannopa by Summerlife.
The next part of hope, Juno, by best wishes.
Next, Heart of Hope Juno by Barrick Cosplay.
Jane of Proudmoore, by Raleigh Cosplay.
Let's hear it one more time for that entire group.
That was really amazing.
Now the sheer number and variety of Blizzard characters is truly staggering.
One of the teams at Blizzard once asked me to play a giant evil undead bug monster.
Now I gotta tell ya, that was one crazy children's birthday party.
So much crying.
Our next category I am very excited about is the turn of the talent category to BlizzCon.
So to celebrate, here are two of them, back to back, two of the finalists.
First we have the Jetpack Cat theme by Sadzela and Mergel, and then we have Mergel Mergel
by Ziggarev.
Illya Ziggarev.
I
Get back at thee, sad zilla!
I'm the creation of the murder race, but no good here I have such a long enough.
For don't you smell the shantral trickle just like a friend of mine?
Very, very, very nice for me.
But indeed, oh, oh, my dear, you dare us around for the war?
I want to build a bridge that we let all the dead end down
Because I'm the hero of the world
You don't need to start to leave me on the real hero
Of the real world
I tried to know what's plus than you all, so I won't lose you.
I'm back from the time he moved on, I'll pretend that I'm a friend some day.
I've been to a friend's house, and he's three, and I've been away.
They don't have a choice but to turn the light on.
I must always be there.
get it, come on, come on, come on.
You, Mergel Mergel by Elia Zigato.
Is everyone having a good time tonight?
That's what it's about, that's what it's about.
On a brief side note, it has been seven years since I have been here live with you.
I don't do these things very much.
This means a lot to me being here in BlizzCon and I'm trying not to cry, but thank you.
Thank you everybody who's here, the crew, everyone.
Thank you for trusting me with this.
Okay, back to me being a nerd.
Remember that move?
That was good.
Okay.
I have no shield.
Let's see some more cool stuff, okay?
We don't need to hear me blather on.
Here is our next cosplay exhibition group.
Celestial Angel, Pink Mercy.
Dean Princess and Miss Monster, Ultra HD Cobolds.
Nadia Elrich, High Inquisitor Lightning.
Angelina Bryant, Hudson and Zalatav.
Katsari, Lady Liadrin.
Orsat, World of Worldcraft, Kul Tiram Druid.
Now, we have another short film, our next short film finalist comes from the world of
Overwatch.
Let's watch it together.
It's the top of the hour.
The United Nations has voted to restore Overwatch as an active international task force.
The decision brings an end to the decades-long perpetuity, established in the wake of Overwatch's
controversial operations 24 years ago. In related developments, Gabriel Reyes, the subject of a
worldwide manhunt and founding member of Overwatch, has been formally acquitted of all charges.
Authorities credit Reyes with providing critical assistance in the recent take-down
of the terror group Tower. The acquittal has been met with mixed reception, including a chain.
That's what it is.
Officials say that the move marks a significant shift in global security policy.
Signaling renewed trust in Overwatch's role as a peacekeeping organization.
To know this now is a reminder of the love of the sky.
You are sharing the stories with me.
Yeah!
I just don't know what I can do to you.
Maybe he's not the one you need to forget.
That's pretty cool.
Coming up next, because that was 76 by Victoria Vandenbroek, we are moving right along with
our next group of exhibition cosplayers, let us welcome them!
Ashley Day, Death Knight of Acherus.
Strawberry Lady Cosplay, Royal Night Mercy.
Malice Vitterfolk, Hornet, Shama of the Silken Thread.
Roxatar, Horde Flagbearer.
Thus grows Lee Cibelle Donpedal.
Dioro Epic Cosplay, Diablo Immortal Dealing Hunter, Aspect of Justice, Ken O. Crafts,
Mike L. Heritage Armour.
Our next category, our next category, finalist category, is epic effects.
It is a category that asks the question, did you hurt yourself just putting that on?
Let's find out as we welcome these fantastic artisans to the stage.
Here is Orweta, Keeper of the Roots by Lorena.
Next, ceremonial Jack around the regalia with sunny floral staff, thanks Barks.
Cross over by Charlanda!
Salotat by Banshee Green cosplay!
It's there in the dreamer by sitting side.
Thank you so much.
All of our participants tonight share something in common, authentic imagination.
It's important in what we do.
It's important in what all of us do.
Here is some more creativity in the form of poetry.
I'm so pleased to welcome a live special performance of, I'd like to apologize to every
healer I've ever had, my Prince of Dayamani.
Woo!
Oh.
Goosebumps, goosebumps.
Hello BlizzCon!
Oh, to my Alliance frenemies, King's Honor, I'm going to
friend of mine, Frini Mies, King's Honor, and to my horde, brothers and sisters, how
are you doing, Mon?
My name is the Presidium Monty and I have a poem for you all today that I would like
to share called, I Like to Apologize to Every Healer I Ever Had.
I'd like to apologize to every healer I ever had,
from PDP to Mythic Plus.
Whoever said healing was easy, they lied.
I tried to do your job once and my whole RAID team died.
I thought the point of being a healer was to keep myself alive.
I'd like to apologize to every healer I ever had.
I remember a discussion that was had in RAID check.
Do you know what DPS stands for?
The priest asked,
dumb piles of shit.
And that wasn't very holy,
but I concur.
I like to apologize
to every healer I ever had.
It was never me who caused the rage to wipe and made you leave
with so much stress.
I'm just a hunter.
If there's anyone who pulled, I promise to blame wasn't me.
It was just my pet.
I like to apologize to every healer I ever had.
I'm so terrible at this game that I need add-ons to remind me not to stand in the back.
DVM, my health is dropping down to a T. I need help, help, big hills on me, big hills
on me.
I like to apologize to every healer I ever had.
I'm dying.
No shit.
Y'all keep standing them bad.
No wonder why my health is dropping.
These hills are pathetic.
I heard my Gilmay say, OK, back.
Let's see how you live.
Nah, I'm a hunter.
I was made for survival.
Your words don't mean shit.
And he fell to his death.
And I promise it wasn't a fame.
She really stopped healing him.
I witnessed it in 4K.
I'd like to apologize to every healer I've ever had.
You guys have the hardest job in the game,
playing both the mom and the dad.
It's more than just skill and not really the gear.
To be a healer is to be brave,
knowing you have a team full of good players and a whole lot of bad.
I'd like to apologize to every healer I ever had.
You don't deserve the slander the tanks and the DPS gives you.
Instead, you deserve flowers without the fuss in the big thank you note
that says, I know your back hurts from carrying us.
And raids, battlegrounds and mythic plus.
I like to apologize to every healer I ever.
You truly keep me playing the game.
I just thought you should know that. Thank you.
Prince of Dayamari!
Prince of Dayamari!
Conley, accept his apology.
That was very, very special.
My friend, let us keep this wonderful energy going
going with our next cosplay exhibition group.
Ikari, final queen, Kerrigan.
Riddledark Heart, Salatow.
C-Rip Cosplay, Tier 21 Mythic Reset.
Dancing Fox Cosplay, Night Warrior Tyrande.
Now it is time to take a look at our third and final art exhibition.
This submission is called Overwatch Assemble, and it is submitted by Lena Bai.
I hope you've enjoyed tonight's artwork.
Keep creating.
I sincerely hope we see your work on this stage the next time we do this.
We want to see you up here.
Now, Frostmourne, Reinhardt's hammer, Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker, Wert's leg,
whatever petrified camel haunch is, Blizzard Games have a rich and vast history of iconic
weapons and unique items.
Our next category is Armories and Artifacts.
Everyone is letting their imaginations run wild in this one.
Let us take a look at what they have in store for us.
Please welcome Azura Drake Brigida by Shannan Noelle.
For the most, I am by far the best!
Cosplay Hero of the Alliance by K-Maker.
Ladies and gentlemen,
by Tsarina Cosplay.
And Alex Charzo by Anacost Play 24.
Up next, our third and final short film submission.
It is called Big Iron.
It is submitted by Zachary Shibes.
I've got a crass to do.
Hello.
King's honor, friend.
Thank you.
I
Your cause, Modan!
Catch up!
Now, yet!
This way to war.
Fire!
Look out!
I
No way.
Big iron, submitted by Zachary Schaib.
to get to the award. Starting with our stunning artists. Here again are tonight's art nominees.
The Mephisto Sculpture by Marco Venizio.
Gouldan and Garrosh by Emanuele.
Next we have Overwatch Assemble by Lina Dine.
And the winner of Best Art is Gouldan and Garrosh by Emma Knowles.
Now, this particular award, it was decided on by a special committee of Blizzard art directors
and creative leads.
I'm going to read some of their thoughts that led them to this decision.
They said Blizzard doesn't have a theme park, but if we did, these could easily be the animatronic
faces for our for-the-hoard dark ride.
Emma, you have made Falmouth University
in the UK proud.
Congratulations.
One more round of applause.
Golden and Gala, by Emma Nome.
Up next, our talent have enchanted us all.
Once again, the submissions were
jetpack cat theme by Sadzilla and Kid Carillo,
Mergel Mergel by Ilya Zygarev, and I'd like to apologize to every healer I ever had.
by Prince of Day of Mine.
And the winner of Best Talent is Mergel Mergel by Ilya Sigal.
Our Talon Lord was judged by Blizzard team members as well as Blizzard President Johanna
and here are some of their thoughts on tonight's winner.
Love the outfit, the songs, the sound effects,
and the uniqueness and the whimsy.
Bergelmerk.
Now, in the short film category, they may have been quick,
but I think they left a really lasting impression
through their beautiful storytelling
and their breathtaking visuals.
Once again, our nominees are High Noon by Bart.
76 by Victoria Vandenberg, and Big Iron by Zachary Shaw.
And the winner, a best short film, is High Noon by Bart.
In this category, our short films were judged by the Blizzard Cinematics team, and here
Here are some of their thoughts on the winter that I'm going to read for you.
Storytelling is incredibly compelling and the passion for the art form bursts through
every frame.
I love to see the tension between these two characters and the flashbacks were very special.
Holstering at the end was a classic chef's kiss.
Once again, those were our winners.
And now we're going to hand out some awards in our cosplay category.
So let us welcome back to the stage our judges.
It is time to crown our cosplay awards.
Let's bring back our cosplay finalists.
Dynamic Duo.
Congratulations.
Next, Master Rasker.
Well done, congratulations.
Congratulations.
And finally, Armouries and Artifacts.
and the fact.
Holy moly.
Judges, our cosplay finalists are gathered.
You, the judges, will now have the opportunity to give your thoughts.
They're going to name our winners one category at a time.
We will begin with Dynamic Duo.
Dynamic Duo, we have chosen these as they represent an iconic clash of two beloved characters.
They specifically paid attention to intricate details,
specifically a clean combination and fabric.
Finish on the fabrics they worked on themselves,
and impressive armor pieces placed together.
These armor pieces were painted with vibrant colors,
and details looked like they had just stepped out of the game.
Now, the winner of Dynamic Duo is...
Zalkegerald and Valtation as Tyrion Forking and Lich King.
We love you so much.
Congratulations, we love you.
Congratulations.
It's cool, it's cool.
Congratulations.
What's up, they're back.
Yeah, you are the best.
Congratulations.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much. Come on over here. Just don't hurt me. Or you can. It's been a long
night. Next, we're going to go to Master Crafter. Judges, we have seen amazing
craftsmanship tonight, so we would like to know who is the winner and what are
your thoughts that led you to that decision.
Hello. And the winner of the Master Crafter category brought a wide range of
materials they used in their cosplay, including LED lights, hand embroidery,
using tons of details in Warbler, and just beautiful details all in general.
So please give it up to your master crafter winner, Oshily, as Cal Tess Sunstrider.
Congratulations!
Congratulations!
You're beautiful!
Really beautiful work.
Congratulations.
And next, we have Ood and Odd at everybody.
There have been some amazing effects.
So this is the category of epic effects.
So, judges, before you tell us who the winner is,
tell us what led you to that decision.
The category epic effects showcases, I will say, like complex lightning,
intricate mechanicals or details.
Here, we are definitely looking for the wow effect.
What mindblown us today was the attention to details,
the amazing paint job, and also the flawless aesthetic.
And the winner of the epic FX category is Sparte,
a ceremonial Jacaranda regalia with sunny flora sun.
Okay, got one more thing going here.
We have some amazing weapons and artifacts that have been wielded in the Armories and
Artifacts category.
Who is our winner and why?
BlizzCon has always been the mecca of epic, epic armors and this year was no different.
We had so many incredible armors in the Cosmic Competition and it was really difficult to
choose who should be the winner.
When I tell you it got heated backstage, I'm dead serious.
There was hair pulling going on, but that is a competition I always win.
This cosplayer had such an incredible costume, and alongside armor, they had so many wonderful
techniques.
They had 3D printing, sewing, wig making, electronics, and everything was done to perfection.
The winner for Armors and Artifact is
Shannon Noel as Azur Drake Brigitte.
Yeah!
we have seen some incredible
creativity on this stage tonight. It has been a wonderful celebration of fandom, of art, of community.
I have not passed out yet. We have one more category, our best in show. Judges, your thoughts on best in show.
Thank you so much, Darren. Let's first let me know that it was a huge honor for us judges
to pick the winner at this year's Community Night at BlizzCon 2026.
And making this decision was actually incredibly difficult,
because 90 people signed up for the contest,
and then we got a chance to prejudge 40 of those contestants.
We were able to talk with every single one of them,
see their costumes up close, talk about their craftsmanship,
and all the love they put into creating their costumes.
And out of those 40 free church costume competition participants, we have now here
four 20 wonderful finalists on stage. And out of those 20 finalists, we had four category winners.
And let's say that like, let me know that like, you guys, you are on stage, like you are all
true winners and we were all very impressed by your wonderful work. But there could be,
there can be only one grand prize winner. You guys are so amazing. And the grand prize winner
is a true OG in the cosplay community. They made a really beautiful and gorgeous costume and we
were very impressed by the craftsmanship. The winner matched up plenty of different techniques
from sculpting, armor, and prop making, a really gorgeous paint job, electronics,
wig styling, arm-worn prop making, sewing, and just so, so, so much more.
And especially, the proportions were just on point.
The winner looked like they just jumped straight out of the game.
Okay, now, sorry for my long speech, but yeah, we were very, very impressed.
and the grand prize winner is Sparks in her ceremonial Jacaranda Regalia.
Congratulations!
Congratulations!
That's a stitch!
Let's hear it one more time for our finalists for everybody that showed up here.
Everyone come on down! Come on down! We're gonna go down there!
Everybody! We're gonna do like a group photo thing, like a Saturday Night Live ending.
You have been amazing. Thank you for being with us and staying with us this
whole night. We want to see you on this stage. These amazing artists made their
dreams happen. They worked hard to do this. Thank you for enjoying it. We will
see you again at our next BlizzCon.
Good night!
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