Overwatch and World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment won’t be at Gamescom this year. The company announced that this was part of a “renewed effort” to “focus on development, for our current games and future projects.” This is despite the popularity of Gamescom, often viewed as one of the most important gaming events along with the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
“As part of a renewed effort this year to maintain our focus on development, for our current games and our future projects, we won’t have a booth at Gamescom 2019. The show is an important one for the European and global gaming community, and we’re going to miss meeting players in Cologne this year,” the company said in a recent news post.
Blizzard Entertainment has a pretty decent history with Gamescom, unveiling new cinematic shorts and maps for its hero shooter Overwatch. Last year’s show was fairly underwhelming due to sudden (and unexplained) change in schedule. It also didn’t help that the subsequent BlizzCon showing faced controversy from the announcement of Diablo Immortal.
With no major releases planned for the year, it doesn’t seem all that odd to focus on BlizzCon 2019 as the main source of announcements. Attendees of the expo in Cologne needn’t worry though – Blizzard has stated that it was “looking forward to returning to the Gamescom floor in the future.” Stay tuned for more information in the coming months, especially on the “several” new Diablo projects in the works.