BlizzCon 2026 is now in the books.  All that was said has been recorded.  Now it is time to get in some reactions around what went on.  There will be months of analysis, but the post-game gut reaction is important too.

BlizzCon 2026

I am going to go through this in the same order I did back before BlizzCon in my predictions post.  We’ll see how I did.

WoW Retail – The Declared Path Remains

It felt like WoW Retail already had a destination declared with the Worldsoul Saga, so all I could come up with was four predictions, and two were wrong.

  • WoW Midnight season and raid updates
  • Passive aggressive apology for how addons have been going
  • Housing updates
  • Previews of The Last Titan

And, honestly, things seemed to be pretty light during the keynote.  But that was because there was something else as the big Azeroth reveal.  Retail had to wait until their panel to get the boatload of updates and goodies Blizz had queued up for them.

When the time came Blizz delivered for retail, including on the housing front, and a new play mode, and the next remix destination, which will be Wrath of the Lich King… and a roadmap.

WoW Retail 2026-2027 Roadmap

Also, it feels like the retail team is trying to gut the eventual anniversary classic ride into Northrend the way they screwed over the Mists of Pandaria launch by going with that as the remix before it landed for original classic progression.  As somebody told me, once is coincidence, twice is enemy action.  This is all heightened by the WoW Classic announcements… which included nothing about what we know as WoW Classic currently.  But that is up next.

Related:

  • Blizz – World of Warcraft at BlizzCon
  • Blizz – World of Warcraft: Midnight What’s Next Panel Recap
  • Blizz – Tales Take a Dark Turn in Midnight’s Talebound
WoW Classic – Classic Plus Actual

I was wrong, Classic Plus is now a thing.  I am happy to have been wrong.  But we’ll get to that in a second.  First, how did I do with my predictions?

  • Warlords of Draenor date for original classic progression
  • Next phase for The Burning Crusade for anniversary classic
  • Wrath of the Lich King date for anniversary classic
  • The Burning Crusade for Hardcore
  • Plans for a new Season of Discovery style experiment

Was that a big zero?  A goose egg for me?  Do you even classic bro?

Not so good on my part.

But all of that was washed aside with the announcement of World of Warcraft Forever, which is what Blizz is calling Classic Plus.  And it is arriving November 4th.  Who cares about all that old shit when something new is showing up? (Somebody does I am sure, but give me a min.)

WoW Forever

I am interested to see how this plays out.  But I am also not sure how it will play out.

There is, however, a roadmap… which includes a Hardcore version of the game showing up after a bit.  Sure.  Why not?  That doesn’t hurt anybody.

WoW Forever 2026-2027 Roadmap

WoW Forever appears to be, on the surface, exactly what a bunch of people were asking for.  We will adventure forever in vanilla Azeroth, where new content will be added… which was my person bar for whether of not this would be “Classic Plus” for real… and never have a level cap increase or have to trade in our raid purples for starter zone greens or worry about flying mounts because there won’t ever be any flying.  They put that genie back in the bottle bitches!

But there is also a lot of… ambiguity.

For openers, it is difficult to tell where the line between 2019 WoW Classic and 2026 WoW Midnight really is.  So if you read Reddit… and you should not read Reddit if you want to maintain your sanity… you can find the WoW Classic pure vanilla idealists upset about being betrayed while over on the WoW Retail side you can find your share of retail purists wondering aloud “who is that even for?”

Who could of predicted that no matter what path Blizz chose that somebody would be loudly upset about it?  I mean besides me and literally anybody else paying any attention at all to the problem.  We couldn’t define “classic” and people bitched about it constantly, so defining “classic plus” was always a non-starter.

WoW Forever is what Blizz says it is and we’re all just going to have to accept that.  You don’t own the copyright or get to choose the path.  Sorry.  It all rides or dies on what Blizz does now.

There are certainly a few choices revealed that made me raise an eyebrow.  The opt-in transmog will absolutely make those who live by their transmog irate.  They care how people see them so they’ll be unhappy to be seen in their clown suit.

The new race, the smurf elves or whatever, being a DLC has people screaming about cash grabs, though it does seem like it is just subscribe to play so the price only matters if you want to play the new elves.  Anything that is a one time price doesn’t bother me.  I’d rather that than it having its own subscription the way EverQuest Legends does.

Then there is the “no realms” aspect, which will require us all to have a last name.  That has potential for both good and bad.  I have already seen the “I know everybody on my server” community out in force on that one.  But if you want to avoid the launch day 3 hour login queue, this is how you do it.  I might have to revisit an old post if it works.

And does WoW Forever and the “every expansion remix track” in retail kill the legit, old school, play it as it launched back in the day, classic as an option?

They were certainly pushing this image as part of the whole event.

Are these the only WoW options in the future?

I get it.  WoW Forever was the big new thing they wanted to talk about.  But the last seven years of WoW Classic also feels like it might be getting shoved into the dust bin and forgotten.  I mean, Heroes of the Storm got a new hero… Blizz found time to talk about that during the keynote!  But did we get any updates on current classic?  Was there a third roadmap out there I missed?

There is a lot to digest and I will no doubt have more thoughts later.

But I’ll be there for it.  I alternate between being hyped and feeling like I am being sold EverQuest Next.  Still, I renewed my WoW subscription (it was set to expire this afternoon!) and will play it when it launches.  While I have my doubts about some choices, I am willing to give it a go  There is a non-zero chance that they found the magic compromise between old and new to give the vanilla vibe while having new content.  That was the ask, when you dig into it.  So we’ll see.  The horse might sing.

I think the most important thing will be to approach this expecting neither a pristine vanilla experience nor a retail point of view.  It is trying to be something different and I’ll have to be sure I am open to that.  Embrace what it has to offer, be open to the new experience, don’t set too many expectations.

Meanwhile, beta for it starts on Thursday.

Related:

  • Blizz – WoW Forever site
  • Blizz – WoW Forever Panel Recap
  • Blizz – World of Warcraft: Forever Deep Dive Panel Recap
  • Blizz – World of Warcraft: Forever Found Photos Panel Recap
Hearthstone and Other WoW IP Related Items

The usual stuff for at least Hearthstone is practically a gimme.  For the rest… I was stretching my ability to care.  This was what I went with.

  • New Hearthstone expansion
  • How they’re going to fix what they broke with a previous Hearthstone expansion
  • More rewards in other Blizz titles if you’ll just come play Hearthstone for a bit
  • Something minor about Warcraft Rumble
  • Whatever they’re doing with Wizards of the Coast, which will end up being either a collectable card game or rules for a table top RPG

I completely missed the idea of a new Warcraft III expansion.  Strange but true.  Hope that revives interest after the completely botched remaster launch.  I won’t be playing it, but there is no doubt a core of RTS fans out there looking forward to it.

And, honestly, the items I have lined out… I didn’t actually verify they didn’t come to pass, I just assumed they didn’t if they were not in the keynote.

Diablo Things

Diablo hit is 30th anniversary, so there was a lot about that.  I got that one right for the bingo card, if not in my predictions.  Also on the bingo card but not in my predictions: Diablo V.  Who knew?  My four predictions were pretty basic and I couldn’t even get those right.

  • Diablo IV new season
  • Diablo IV new expansion reveal
  • Diablo Immortal more seasons and more cash shop thingies
  • Diablo III yet another season

Besides the Diablo V and anniversary thing, the big miss was probably the Diablo animated series project with Netflix.  That seems a bit shaky to me, if only because streaming services are feeling a bit shaky and Netflix has a reputation of cancelling stuff after two seasons, good or not, because it is cheaper to throw a few dubbed shows in the lineup instead.  Also, despite my enjoying the first few Diablo games, I am not all that big on the story itself.  It will have to get really good reviews to get on our TV.

Ovewatch and Other Things

Here is where I was basically tossing darts blind, and my guesses were as follows:

  • Overwatch – new hero reveal
  • StarCraft – Something vague about a new game based on the IP
  • Heroes of the Storm – Patch update, maybe a new hero
  • Lost Vikings – Erik, Baleog, and Olaf showing up somewhere new

I mean, I did better here than I did with WoW Classic, right?

Technically I think Overwatch is getting something like ten new heroes… but we got one reveal right there at the keynote.  Hell, we got a Heroes of the Storm hero announced as well.  I cannot remember even a single detail about either, but they were announced.

Also, we were forced to watch some long ass animated trailer thing that did not make a lick of sense to me.  Maybe the Overwatch people got it, but it felt like five minutes showing me something that could have probably just been described in 15 seconds.

The StarCraft shooter, long rumored and possibly cancelled at least twice before, finally made contact.  This has been a long time coming.  StarCraft Ghost was slated for the freaking GameCube, to give you a sense of time.  That era was probably the last point at which a shooter might have interested me, if I seem a bit blase on the whole thing.

But making a successful shooter is easy right?  I mean, even CCP thinks they can manage it.  We’ll see how this plays out.

BlizzCon Keynote Bingo Winning Squares!

Finally, the most important part for everybody I am sure, the bingo results.

It looks like 15 of the 54 possible squares came to pass.  If I do it again next year there will be some things I will cut for sure.  But I will also include a square for “you can play it on the show floor” for new things announced.

The items I am declaring having come to pass are:

  • Actual Classic Plus
  • Blizzard Family
  • Diablo 30th anniversary
  • Diablo V
  • For the Horde!
  • Holly Longdale Speaking
  • Mention of the Warcraft RTS
  • New Hearthstone Play Mode
  • New Hearthstone expansion
  • New Hero for Overwatch
  • New hero for Heroes of the Storm
  • Some boring exec talking on stage
  • StarCraft Shooter
  • The Last Titan teaser cinematic
  • eSports ignored

A couple of those were oddly insightful.  I must have been drunk to include Diablo V, but then it got announced!

I think, had I done this correctly, I would have been able to see all the cards generated so I could tell if anybody got a bingo.  But 15 out of 54 make for some pretty slight odds.

My own card did not get a bingo.  I only hit on five spots.

Wilhelm – Bingo Card Result

I think the lesson for next year is some more gimme squares.  Things like “female presenter dressed up to be on stage” and “male presenter thinks a product T-shirt is dressing up” spring to mind.  There is a real dichotomy between the sexes when it comes to what they wear on stage.  And maybe something like “Holly Longdale laughs uncomfortably more than a dozen times during her presentation” will find its way into the mix.

Anyway, that is my Monday morning recap.  There is a lot more to dig into, and WoW Forever is going to need some further examination for sure.  But I will need some more time on that front.