New Blizzard MMO won't replace WoW

By Fred Dutton Published 27 October, 2010

Next game will go in "different directions".

Blizzard believes World of Warcraft can happily co-exist with the unannounced "next-generation MMO" that it is currently developing.

Speaking at Blizzcon last weekend, president Mike Morhaime told GameTrailers, "We are working on a second MMO. We're thinking of it as sort of a next-generation MMO. It's not a sequel to World of Warcraft - we want to do something a bit different.

"We're not trying to replace World of Warcraft. We think that World of Warcraft can continue co-existing with our new MMO and some people might prefer the new one, some people might still prefer to play World of Warcraft."

"But I think after building World of Warcraft the first time, we're so much smarter now," he added. "We have a lot of expertise that we didn't have before. And I think we also want to sort of... every massively multiplayer game doesn't have to be similar to the ones that exist today.

"We think you can go in different directions and still have a great massively multiplayer experience and we want to sort of experiment with what that might look like."

Don't expect to hear any more about Blizzard's next behemoth for some time. According to VG247, the earliest we'll see a reveal is 2012.

Other news coming out of Blizzard's annual clambake included a new character class for Diablo III, custom mods for StarCraft 2 and fighting talk regarding Valve's DOTA sequel.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (16) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Spekingur #1 2 years ago

    I still think it's a Thundercats MMO...

  • Vistrix #2 2 years ago

    Sci-fi please.

  • Benno #3 2 years ago

    they'll be some degree of canabalism because a lot of people only play wow because its one of, if not the most polished MMO out there

    if blizz make an equally polished second MMO, I know I'll be jumping ship

  • Plewt #4 2 years ago

    Remember that this will be out around a whole decade after WoW launched so it's a non-issue in my mind.

  • kestral #5 2 years ago

    YES no more fighting lol

  • swills #6 2 years ago

    I kinda wish companies wouldn't talk about games that they are two years away from *announcing*, and likely four or even five years from releasing.

  • hoonatic #7 2 years ago

    I'm just worried that they might come out with an MMO that I won't be able to resist this time. I steered clear of WOW as I saw what it did to people - but it seems that their strategy is "well ok, so you didn't like crack cocaine.....how about crystal meth instead?"

  • SilentTristero #8 2 years ago

    I fucking hate news about potentially exciting products, that end with 'We may hear about it in 3 years.'

    Fuck. Off. I'm not especially impatient, but that's a huge amount of time, particularly for games.

    Obviously down to the devs and publishers, rather than the site covering the 'news'.
    Edited by SilentTristero at 28/10/10 @ 00:03

  • alientude #9 2 years ago

    Blizzard really isn't talking much about their next MMO. They're typically very close-lipped about every game they develop until they announce it. The reason news of this game leaked out at all is that people looked at Blizzard's job postings and deduced from them that Blizzard was working on another MMO. Since then, I don't believe they've actually taken it upon themselves to tell people about it; rather, they've answered a (very) few questions.

  • Tio #10 2 years ago

    From a business standpoint, they have to be thinking consoles. Like it or not its probably the best to make the most money.

    Much fewer WoW ship jumpers (already getting cash from those), a whole new customer base to explore, and with expansions keep the existing one's playing WoW . No EQ1+2 customer base splitting this way (well less so)
    Edited by Tio at 28/10/10 @ 04:22

  • SAMagic #11 2 years ago

    @Tio: You're probably going to get a lot of flack for saying that, as 11 million players is obscenely successful for PC and made them billions. There's a reason we haven't seen any MMOs on consoles in this generation. The technology is there but the manufacturers are so tight with standards and other aspects that it just isn't feasible for developers. I think it was Champions Online that was aimed for X360 but failed to do so (someone correct me if I'm wrong), while I believe there have been a few other attempts too.

    As for Blizzard's next game, who knows? WOW is still going strong, while StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 are fresh so it wouldn't make sense to add to them already. I suppose a StarCraft MMO is a possibility: like WOW but action-based and faster? An RTS set across a galaxy with players controlling planets, Eve-style?. With the popularity of post-nuclear games (even if the setting is far too common and becoming saturated), I wouldn't mind seeing the old 'Shattered Nations' resurrected, but I doubt it. I reckon they'll expand their franchise range with something new - or at least I hope so.

  • geeza2020 #12 2 years ago

    The Lost Vikings: Online? Errr.....

  • Tio #13 2 years ago

    @SAMagic... I agree entirely and popular or unpopular it makes business sense. I am not saying its going to be easy but think about it. 11 million WoW players giving them £8 per month (ish). A new MMO which lets face it would be massively successful on any format, launches on the PC , lets be honest how many NEW subscribers will that get them?. I accept some players would subscribe to both, but a lot of the 'new MMO' players would be ex WoW players, hence no 'REAL' increase in revenue, or at the least a small increase in revenue.

    Now how many XBOX, PS3 players have a current WoW account ( I do) , but in reality probably not many have both and are paying to both, so therefore a new MMO designed with consoles in mind and targeted at console players would bring in NEW subscribers and MORE new subscribers.

    Guys I know PC gamers are very protective of Blizzard ( and rightly so) but think about the business side, and it makes perfect sense.Its a Holy Grail for MMO designers to tap into the console market for MORE subcribers.

  • iamian #14 2 years ago

    I agree that another PC based MMO might detract from the current WOW stock of players but with a clever bit of subscription procing they could get the best of both worlds - £8.99 for one £12.99 for both. Doesn't seem so bad as two seperate subscriptions... I guess we'll see - eventually.

  • Rack #15 2 years ago

    I can see where you're coming from Tio, but this won't be coming for a very long time by the sounds of it, the bleed from WoW by 2015 will be fairly significant so cannibalisation won't be as significant. On top of that the life-cycle of consoles makes this difficult, would WoW be as succesful if it were a PS2 game?

    I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did an MMO for the PS4/ Xbox 480 but it wouldn't make sense for them to ignore the PC market as WoW stagnates.

  • Trikk #16 2 years ago

    Option 1: Blizzard listens to PC gamers, releasing a ground-breaking MMOG that mixes the best features of FPS, RTS, RPG and fighting games with the creative outlet of games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress in an accessible yet deep persistent world that dynamically changes based on the actions (and inactions) of the players that inhabit it.

    Option 2: Space World of Warcraft with Facebook integration