BlizzCon 2016 is less than 2 months away and I am very excited about going to BlizzCon this year. I am sure there are going to be lots of announcements and e-sport events going on this year. In this blog post, I want to try and predict what may happen at BlizzCon this year. World of Warcraft just released their newest expansion "Legion" so I don't think WoW will announce the next expansion at BlizzCon this year. They will probably focus more on whats coming in the next series of patches for the Legion expansion. Hearthstone just released their newest adventure expansion so they will probably announce another card expansion at BlizzCon this year. Heroes of the Storm will probably continue push out new characters and maps plus they might finally get around to making an "arena" mode possible in the game. The arena mode made its debut last BlizzCon but isn't in the game yet. Starcraft 2 will probably have new heroes for their co-op mode (much like they announced Alarak at GamesCon this year).
Overwatch might announce the arrival of its 23rd character in Sombra (which has been hinted at for a very long time). Overwatch will probably come out with a new animated short at BlizzCon (don't know which character story they will focus on - maybe Sombra?). At GamesCon, Overwatch did come out with the new animated short called "The Last Bastion" (it is very, very well done) and stated that there will be new sets of animated shorts in the future. Diablo 3 will be at an interesting point at BlizzCon this year. I don't think they will do much with Diablo 3 anymore because they might introduce the new Diablo game at BlizzCon this year. Even if they do announce something for Diablo 3, all of the new things for that game won't come out until season 8 is done (which would be around February 2017). I expect the PTR for season 8 will start sometime in October with season 7 ending sometime near the BlizzCon date (November 4 or so).
I am going to expect something big for the new Diablo game. The reason why I think Blizzard will announce something for Diablo is that the time is right to announce something big. Like I said, if they just announce a little bit of news for Diablo 3 and nothing else, a lot of people will be very disappointed. This will be 2 years in a row that Diablo won't have anything to announce at the opening ceremonies if Blizzard doesn't announce a new Diablo game. A lot of fans of Diablo will feel left out if they don't announce something big for Diablo, especially since there were no major news for Diablo in the past BlizzCon and even GamesCon. It might be that Blizzard isn't ready to announce the new Diablo game (since it is still in development) yet, much like how they dealt with new MMO game "Titan". Which I think is fair, but if they don't announce the new Diablo game at BlizzCon, when will they announce it?
Also, I am expecting lots of cosplaying at BlizzCon this year. I expect to see lots of cosplays of Overwatch characters and even WoW demon hunters. I don't know who might host the costume contest this year (maybe Wil Wheaton again?, Chris Hardwick? Jay Mohr? - there are lots of good candidates). The closing ceremony band will also be interesting to see, although Blizzard usually picks a heavy metal band. I am hoping that Blizzard does something different this year. Since the movie "Warcraft" came out this year, why can't they show this movie at the closing ceremony this year? (in fact there is little fanfare surrounding this movie for some odd reason - poor ticket sales maybe?). It would be neat if Blizzard fans could watch a "Director's cut" version of "Warcraft" (or even have Duncan Jones come in and do a "live" director's commentary for the movie). E-sport tournaments for Starcraft, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone are going to be epic this year again. I know Overwatch will have an all-star format, which I don't think will do well (people want to see the best teams play against one another). That's it for now, hopefully all my predictions come true when I attend BlizzCon for the 4th time.
