![Blizzard Just Scheduled the Next Five Years](https://cdn.slatesource.com/5/a/1/5a135daa-33f9-47bc-b23b-069f7bbe8281.webp) # Blizzard Just Scheduled the Next Five Years - [Made in Slatesource](https://slatesource.com/@steph/blizzard-just-scheduled-the-next-five-years) - By [Steph](https://slatesource.com/@steph) - Created on Sep 16, 2026 ![](https://cdn.slatesource.com/5/a/1/5a135daa-33f9-47bc-b23b-069f7bbe8281.webp) ## Four Announcements. One Ceremony. Three Years of Silence. BlizzCon has been dark since 2023. No event in 2024, none in 2025. When Blizzard president Johanna Faries walked out at the Anaheim Convention Center on September 12, the audience had waited longer for this moment than any BlizzCon crowd in the event's history. What she announced in the next two hours did not disappoint: Diablo V, a World of Warcraft game that has been requested since 2009, a StarCraft shooter, and a Diablo animated series on Netflix. Not one announcement but four, each with a confirmed window, each representing a franchise that has generated billions of dollars. Blizzard has just scheduled the next five years of gaming. ## Blizzard's 35th Anniversary This is also Blizzard's 35th anniversary, Diablo's 30th, and Overwatch's 10th. Faries, who became president in February 2024 and had never run a BlizzCon before, used the occasion to answer years of criticism that Blizzard had gone quiet. The company that Microsoft acquired for $68.7 billion in October 2023 put every one of its franchises on stage at the same time, at the same event, to the same crowd that had been told to wait three years for a convention to exist again. > My hope is that our coming together can remind the world why community like this matters, why artistry matters, why creativity matters, and why making and playing games will matter always. ## The Announcement Fifteen Years in the Making World of Warcraft: Forever is the game's most-requested feature since Vanilla WoW ended in 2007. Players called it "Classic Plus" for over a decade: a version of the original 2004 game that keeps the level-60 cap and the slower, world-focused design while adding entirely new content on top of it. Blizzard's Classic WoW servers, launched in 2019, filled the nostalgia side of that demand but not the expansion side. Every major gaming forum has had a pinned Classic Plus thread for years. Blizzard finally answered it on September 12. ## What WoW Forever Actually Is It is a permanent third game alongside Modern WoW and Classic, not a seasonal realm. It launches November 4, 2026, included in every active WoW subscription at no extra charge. Beta opens September 17. Features at launch: three new zones, over 1,000 new quests, nine dungeons, two raids, a new race called the Skyborne, and a toggle between original 2004 graphics and a high-definition mode. The level cap stays at 60. It will never move. WoW has an estimated 9 million subscribers as of late 2025. Every one of them gets this. [Blizzard: Everything announced at BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony](https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/24301453/everything-announced-at-blizzcon-2026-opening-ceremony?utm_source=slatesource) ## Diablo V and the Numbers Behind the Announcement Diablo V is confirmed for spring 2029, set in a version of Sanctuary after Diablo has already won. Diablo IV, released June 2023, earned $666 million in its first five days: the fastest-selling Blizzard game ever. It has since crossed 10 million copies sold and more than $1 billion in total revenue. The Diablo franchise has generated nearly $9 billion in its 30-year history. Announcing a sequel three years into Diablo IV's lifespan signals Blizzard's confidence that the franchise can sustain two active games simultaneously. ## Diablo IV Keeps Going Diablo IV continues with its Season of Hell's Legacy, starting September 15, featuring the return of the original Prime Evils alongside material pulled from across the series' 30-year history. The Amazon class arrives in the first half of 2027. And a Diablo animated series produced with Netflix was confirmed, following the model that Castlevania used to find an entirely new audience for a classic franchise. No release date was given for the series. Diablo IV first-five-days revenue $666M (Blizzard all-time record) Diablo IV copies sold 10 million+ Diablo franchise 30-year revenue approx. $9 billion WoW Forever beta opens September 17 2026 WoW Forever launch (subscription included) November 4 2026 WoW estimated subscribers (late 2025) 9 million BlizzCon dark period 3 years (no event in 2024 or 2025) StarCraft shooter window 2030 [GamesRadar: Everything announced at BlizzCon 2026](https://www.gamesradar.com/news/live/blizzcon-2026-everything-announced/?utm_source=slatesource) ## StarCraft Becomes a Shooter The most surprising reveal and the furthest away. StarCraft, dormant since Legacy of the Void in 2015, will return not as an RTS but as an open-world shooter. Blizzard gave it a 2030 window with no gameplay shown. It is betting that the StarCraft universe, with its Terran, Zerg and Protoss factions, carries enough cultural weight to work in a new genre. That bet will not be tested for four years. Hearthstone gets a new expansion on October 20 and its first new playable class in six years in March 2027. Warcraft III Reforged gets its first expansion in over two decades, available immediately. ## The Five-Year Commitment What Blizzard has done at BlizzCon 2026 is unusual. Committing to release windows years out, especially for games not yet in active production, runs against the "when it's ready" posture the company held for most of its history. Faries is making a specific bet: that fans who waited three years for BlizzCon to return, and fifteen years for WoW Forever, will commit to a roadmap that runs to 2030. WoW Forever arrives in seven weeks. Diablo V is three years out. StarCraft's shooter is four. The Netflix series has no date at all. The question that will define this era of Blizzard's history is whether they can close out every one of those windows.