Blizzard is bringing back its annual BlizzCon event in 2023, though it’s unclear right now whether the event will be an in-person, online, or hybrid occasion. The return of Blizzard’s showcase was confirmed by Mike Ybarra, the president of Blizzard Entertainment, who addressed the status of BlizzCon in an end-of-the-year wrap-up post talking about what the company’s done in the past year and what it has to look forward to.
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Ybarra’s writeup for 2022 only briefly touched on the topic of BlizzCon in a rundown of different staffing changes that have been made internally within Blizzard this year. Those changes included appointing April McKee, the former director of Xbox Gaming, as Blizzard’s executive producer for BlizzCon (McKee has held the job since February 2022 despite there not being a BlizzCon event this year).
But there will be a BlizzCon in 2023, Ybarra said, with the Blizzard president confirming “Yes, we’re bringing BlizzCon back.” We’ll hear more about the plans for the 2023 show “early next year,” though no timeframe was given regarding when, exactly, we’ll hear about Blizzard’s plans.
For context on past Blizzard events, one did take place in 2021, but it was only an online event as Blizzard and other event organizers were still grappling with the logistics of being together in-person amid COVID precautions. We got new looks at some redone versions of Overwatch heroes for Overwatch 2 among other announcements. BlizzCon 2022 did not happen in any form, however, with Blizzard opting to cancel the event entirely this year. While COVID concerns were still a factor, Blizzard was notably in the midst of a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard.
The BlizzCon event from 2021 took place in February, but if it were going to take place in that month in 2023, one would expect that dates would’ve been announced by now. We’ll know more about the event early next year, however, and will hopefully get some teases as to what’s supposed to be there. Diablo 4 seems like a guarantee given that it’ll be out in June 2022, but what’ll be shown beyond that remains to be seen.
