Earlier today, Blizzard announced that it is working on a brand new survival game for consoles and PC.
Although very little is known about it beyond a couple of pieces of promotional art, it sounds like this will be a massive undertaking. Blizzard's website is certainly hyping it up, even describing it as "the next chapter in Blizzard's story."
It's arguably somewhat surprising for Blizzard to begin work on what looks to be a major new IP for the company when it's not only in the midst of the Microsoft/Activision buy out, but is juggling a few other projects already.
Diablo 4 aside, it's been a while since any of those other projects received any meaningful update either, so here's a rundown of every game we know that Blizzard is making right now.
Untitled survival game
Let's get this one out of the way first since, like we said, we know nothing about it. The promo art suggests a fantasy setting at least.
The two characters appear to be wearing modern day clothing, however, so perhaps the premise involves regular people from our world being stranded in a fantasy realm. Kind of like Square Enix's Forspoken?
Given the timing of its announcement, it's easy to assume that this will be an Xbox exclusive. But the project likely started before the buy out, meaning some kind of deal or contract to release it on other platforms like PlayStation and Switch could already be in place.
It's also unclear if this game's existence will affect development on any of Blizzard's other projects. It sounds like a completely separate team is behind it, which should mean that staff and resources won't be pulled away from those other projects
Either way, it's far too soon to make assumptions and with the team still looking for new members, you shouldn't expect a proper reveal trailer for a long time.
Diablo Immortal
We wouldn't blame you for forgetting this one exists. Compared to Blizzard's other projects, Diablo Immortal hasn't had nearly the same amount of media attention and it has most assuredly been drowned out by the Activision sexual harassment lawsuit.
You probably do remember its infamous unveiling at BlizzCon 2018, where fans very publicly expressed their discontent with the next Diablo title being a game for mobile phones.
During a Q&A session with developers, one attendee even asked if Diablo Immortal was an out of season April Fools joke, which quickly went viral across social media. Confirmation that it wouldn't come to PC elicited booing.
The negativity surrounding it seems to have died down over the years and the closed beta in October was mostly positively received.
While it is a mobile spin-off, Diablo Immortal is still an action RPG like the rest of the series; it's just also an MMO with various multiplayer activities like raids and PvP combat.
It's the only Blizzard project to have something even vaguely resembling a release window, with it currently scheduled to launch within the first half of 2022.
Diablo 4
This is the Diablo those fans in 2018 wanted to see announced. And it was, just a year later in 2019.
The long-awaited follow-up to 2012's Diablo 3, Diablo 4 will once again see players choose a character class and scour dungeons for enemies to fight and stronger equipment so they may eventually thwart the main antagonist Lilith.
Over two years since its announcement, however, and there is still no release date. At the very least, it won't be coming out in 2022 and it's slated for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
It's believed that development has been affected by the ongoing scandals at Activision Blizzard. Diablo 4's director Luis Barriga and lead designer Jesse McCree both left the project and the company in July, with the latter specifically implicated as part of the infamous BlizzCon Cosby Crew.
The departure of key figures in its development obviously would set it back and it also remains to be seen if the Microsoft acquisition will affect it further.
Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2's situation is really not that much different from Diablo 4's. It too was announced in November 2019 and has since suffered internal delays and employee turnouts that have pushed its release to 2023 at the absolute earliest.
While it is by all accounts a full-fledged sequel to the original hero shooter, Overwatch 2 isn't technically replacing the first game. Both games will co-exist in a shared multiplayer environment, with any and all new playable characters, maps, and modes to be made available in both as well.
It'll also offer PvE modes, including a dedicated story mode with missions that require you to play as specific characters and will flesh out Overwatch's lore. Considering the first game lacked any real story content, with the world and characters explored in other media, this is certainly an exciting and welcome addition.
As for the core PvP mode, Overwatch 2 is radically shaking things up by shrinking teams from six players to five and limiting them to one Tank per team. This will fundamentally change the meta, as well as how professional teams will approach the game.
The unexpected departure of game director Jeff Kaplan, who served as the public face of Overwatch, was likely a blow to the game's development. But he was immediately replaced by Aaron Keller, who was initially the associate director so hopefully the transition was smooth enough to not drastically interfere with anything.
Earlier this week, Overwatch producer Tracy Kennedy blamed Activision CEO Bobby Kotick for Overwatch 2's development troubles, claiming that he had repeatedly given the team new projects for the first game, only to cancel them months afterwards.
Despite these setbacks, Overwatch 2 does appear to be progressing decently as Blizzard will be using an early build of the game for the 2022 season of the Overwatch League, which will start this April.
Regarding release platforms, it's generally assumed that it will launch for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch at the very least.
Given the Microsoft acquisition, however, there is cause to believe that it could wind up on Xbox and PC only, which definitely wouldn't sit well with those who play the first game extensively on PlayStation or Switch.
