BlizzCon schedule hints at Diablo focus

By Oli Welsh Published 7 October, 2010

No sign of SCII: Heart of the Swarm.

Blizzard has published the schedule and panel descriptions for this year's BlizzCon fan convention, which takes place on 22nd and 23rd October in its usual venue of the Anaheim Convention Center south of Los Angeles.

Although the schedule never tells the full story – Blizzard usually keeps a surprise for its opening ceremony – it does suggest that Diablo III will get its turn in the limelight this year.

Blizzard's next major release (well, if you don't count the small matter of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm) enjoys the pride-of-place session at noon on the Friday, immediately after the opening ceremony, with a panel called "Diablo III: Gameplay".

Lead designer Jay Wilson told Eurogamer, in an interview published today, that "in terms of the amount of things that we're showing, this is our biggest BlizzCon to date. We've got a lot of stuff now. We're cooking a game now." Expect the fifth and final character class to be unveiled.

Fans may have hoped to hear the first details about the second StarCraft II instalment, Heart of the Swarm, but with Wings of Liberty still young and Diablo III at the front of the PR queue, that seems unlikely. There are plenty of StarCraft II sessions, however, and competitive SCII looks set to dominate BlizzCon tournaments.

With Catclysm just weeks from release and the beta exhaustively detailed, WOW activity will most likely be restricted to the first showing of the Cataclysm trailer from Blizzard's fêted cinematics team and a roadmap for updates to the expansion in Friday's Dungeons & Raids panel.

What about the revelation of Blizzard's mysterious fourth game and next MMO? Dream on... But check Eurogamer's live coverager from BlizzCon 2010, just in case.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • JahB #1 2 years ago

    Nice. I love SC2, but i'm happy with the current package. Would much rather have D3 before Heart of the Swarm.

  • Machetazo #2 2 years ago

    More on Diablo III. I'll be watching for that.

  • mumblyjoe #3 2 years ago

    Warcraft 4!! Warcraft 4!! Warcraft 4!!
    Edited by mumblyjoe at 07/10/10 @ 13:36

  • Canyarion #4 2 years ago

    From what we've heard recently, they haven't done much of Heart of the Swarm anyway. :-(

    And even though I'd love to get Warcraft 4, I doubt it will happen anytime soon. They'll be working on SC2 for the next 4 years and it will be hard to make a Warcraft game that follows up the story of WoW. I guess it could work if it will be a prequel.

  • Spekingur #5 2 years ago

    I need DIII to get my friends away from League of Legends. It's the only thing that they play nowadays :/

  • levitate #6 2 years ago

    I'm enjoying my sessions of Starcraft II.

    I'm not sure how I fill be able to fit the day's 24 hours round SC2, Cataclysm and a third Blizzard game though.

  • SAMagic #7 2 years ago

    WORLD OF WARCRAFT 2!

    (I kid, I kid)

  • Der_tolle_Emil #8 2 years ago

    Not surprised at all that there is not much to be seen of the first SC2 addon. The game was released just a few weeks ago and while I'm not a big Diablo fan the game certainly deserves the attention this time around.