BlizzCon 2023 Preview - Predictions Of The Biggest Announcements From The Show

A little event happened two weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to be a part of it… and all of you were too. BlizzCon isn't just for those who attend the show in person, it's also a time when we get to connect with fans around the world and show off more of the game than we normally do, and this year we even ran an event in-game with a playable version of our just announced hero, Mauga. I'd like to run through the show - this is partially a recap, a correction to misunderstandings around announcements we made, and a bit of a sentimental journey. If you're not into that and just want the deets on Mauga changes, skip to paragraph 3 (don’t worry, I won't mind).

I went into BlizzCon expecting big World of Warcraft announcements, and we certainly got a bunch of them, but I can’t rightfully say I was right about any. However, I still think Iridikron will remain an antagonist throughout the next expansion, and it won’t be until Midnight that we’ll actually deal with him for the last time. I did not expect to get three expansion announcements, and some of the features coming with The War Within were also surprising. Additionally, 10.2 went live, and I have some thoughts about how that is progressing. Let’s jump in!

Earlier this summer, developer Evening Star Studios and publisher Private Division revealed Penny's Big Breakaway during a Nintendo Direct. While the throwback 3D platforming adventure looked great in its own right, what caught a lot of people's attention was the team behind it. Evening Star's creative director and lead engine architect is Christian Whitehead, one of the lead developers behind 2017's Sonic Mania. Whitehead isn't alone, though, as various other Evening Star developers also worked on Sonic Mania. While we've still got some time before the game's release – it's due out sometime in 2024 – Game Informer has a special sneak peek at its music and can exclusively reveal three tracks from the game. 

Baldur's Gate 3 and Larian Studios just had the most successful night in the history of the Golden Joysticks Awards.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is perhaps one of the most divisive, if not the most divisive, expansion that has graced the wildly popular MMORPG. With it came a plethora of new dungeons, two entirely new races (one for the Horde and Alliance, respectively), and a drastic change to the world map. But Blizzard Entertainment is dedicated to preserving the nostalgia that’s integral to the success of World of Warcraft: Classic while also keeping modern sensibilities in mind to cater to players who may have missed these pivotal moments in the MMORPG’s history. This includes some user interface revamps, the inclusion of new systems like the Season of Discovery, and more that the Classic team is working on delivering once Deathwing soars back into Azeroth to wreak havoc for a second time.

World of Warcraft: The War Within is the next expansion set to release for the decades-long-running MMORPG. Touted as during the BlizzCon 2023 Opening Ceremony part of the culmination of nearly twenty years of Warcraft history, The War Within is the first of three chapters that will see the resolution to narrative threads that have been dangling for years. And like any expansion, it will feature new areas for players to discover, along with more than a handful of dungeons and encounters they can tackle at varying difficulties.

By Luis Joshua Gutierrez on

During BlizzCon 2023, the World of Warcraft team announced that the next few expansions would be releasing at a faster pace than players are used to, highlighted by the fact that the MMO developer showcased the next three expansions on stage. The team's development process to do so apparently is a result of feedback from Shadowlands' glacial pace of content releases, according to the developers in a group interview over the weekend.

Two months on from the release of Starfield, players are still waiting for Bethesda to address the numerous bugs which are present. But there's a whole other group of players out there taking matters into their own hands — the team behind the Starfield Community Patch, an ambitious and surprisingly professional taskforce trying to fix the game themselves. The project came under the spotlight about a month before Starfield released. It was wild to think that a group of modders could already be working on a mod for Starfield before it had even released, but there they were — anticipating the Bethesda jank fans have come to expect.

If you've played the game, you know the one.

Blizzard was quick to release their own recap of the BlizzCon 2023 Deep Dive panel for World of Warcraft, covering Delves, Warbands, Hero Talents, the Earthen allied race, dynamic flight, PvP updates, and more!

Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon is back and in-person for the first time in four years. BlizzCon 2023 runs Nov. 3-4 in Anaheim, but Blizzard fans can watch the show from anywhere, with two days of live broadcasts.