In-person events are beginning to come back, but the COVID-19 pandemic is still keeping many of them from happening. This year’s BlizzCon is the latest event to be affected. Blizzard announced that it would not be holding the event this year in a statement posted on the company’s website.
The company emphasized how much preparation goes into an event like BlizzCon, requiring work from not only Blizzard but their production partners and “other collaborators [Blizzard] teams up with locally and globally to put all of the pieces together” before revealing that due the event would not be taking place this year. “The ongoing complexities and uncertainties of the pandemic have impacted our ability to properly move forward on many of these fronts, and ultimately we’re now past the point where we’d be able to develop the kind of event we’d want to create for you in November,” wrote Saralyn Smith, Executive Producer of BlizzCon.
While there won’t be a BlizzCon this year, Blizzard is still planning to hold an online event similar to last year’s BlizzCon Online. Smith didn’t give specifics, but said that the event would be “combining an online show along the lines of our recent BlizzConline with smaller in-person gatherings, and we’ll share more as our plans come together.”
It’s probably for the best, especially since Blizzard may not have much to reveal about Overwatch 2 or Diablo 4 as they aren’t releasing this year, though those aren’t the only games the studio is working on.
