BlizzCon is back, and Blizzard didn't ease into it. The opening day of BlizzCon 2026 delivered one of the busiest announcement blocks the show has produced in years, headlined by the surprise return of StarCraft, the reveal of Diablo V, and a new long-term way to play the original World of Warcraft called Forever. That was still only part of the day. Warcraft III Reforged got its first new campaign in more than two decades, Hearthstone finally added a new class, Overwatch reworked two of its most recognizable heroes, and Blizzard confirmed a Diablo animated series is heading to Netflix.
Here's everything Blizzard announced during BlizzCon 2026 Day 1.
StarCraft Is Coming Back as an Open World Shooter
Blizzard opened the show by finally answering a question StarCraft fans have been asking for close to a decade: the franchise is returning. What it isn't doing is coming back as another real-time strategy game.
Blizzard VP and game director Dan Hay took the stage to unveil STARCRAFT, an original open world shooter set in the Koprulu Sector. "We are here to make StarCraft, and it's about damn time," Hay said during the reveal. The game is targeting a Spring 2030 release, which puts it several years out from the announcement, and Blizzard hasn't shown gameplay or explained how the open world will actually function yet.
The reveal cinematic drops players into the middle of a Terran soldier's war against the Zerg, with the United Earth Directorate also involved in the conflict. That's a fundamental change from the earlier games, where players commanded armies from above. Here, the perspective is ground level, a single soldier caught in a battle that used to be represented by unit counters and resource bars. The Protoss barely appear in the initial reveal, though Blizzard hasn't said whether that means a reduced role or simply that the studio isn't ready to talk about them yet.
This isn't Blizzard's first attempt to take StarCraft out of the RTS genre. StarCraft: Ghost, a third-person shooter, entered development in the early 2000s before getting cancelled. This time, Blizzard is treating the shooter concept as one of its core new projects rather than a side experiment, which makes the eventual gameplay reveal a lot more important than the cinematic that introduced it.
Diablo V Starts With Diablo Already Winning
If StarCraft was the day's biggest surprise, Diablo V was the announcement that defined it. The fifth mainline Diablo game is targeting Spring 2029, and its premise flips the series' usual structure. Sanctuary has already fallen, and Diablo has already won.
Every previous Diablo game has centered on stopping an existential threat before it consumes the world. Diablo V begins after that fight has already been lost. The heroes who came before failed, Diablo has reshaped Sanctuary, and the survivors are left figuring out how to live in what's left of it.
Players take on the role of the Heir to Westmarch, travelling with a growing caravan of survivors through a transformed version of Sanctuary. That caravan structure pushes rebuilding and survival much closer to the center of the game than the usual town-to-town demon hunting loop.
Blizzard has confirmed three classes so far. The Demon Hunter and Monk are both returning from Diablo III, while the Plague Knight is an entirely new class built for this era of Sanctuary. Blizzard hasn't detailed how the Plague Knight plays yet, though the name fits a world reshaped by corruption and disease. The studio also says it's using lessons from earlier Diablo games to put more emphasis on item depth, clarity, and identity, though the full loot structure hasn't been revealed.
World of Warcraft: Forever Gives Classic Azeroth Somewhere New to Go
World of Warcraft's third big reveal took the game in the opposite direction from Diablo V and StarCraft. Rather than building something new, Blizzard is building on top of the original game. It's called World of Warcraft: Forever, and it's designed to sit alongside both Modern WoW and WoW Classic as a permanent, ongoing experience.
Forever uses the original continents and the atmosphere of the Vanilla era, but Blizzard is adding new stories rather than just preserving old ones. The expansion brings three new zones and more than 1,000 new quests, along with nine new dungeons and two new raids. A new playable race called the Skyborne is joining the world too, and Blizzard is introducing new progression systems on top of the original leveling structure.
The beta begins September 17, with the full launch scheduled for November 4. That's a short runway for a project this ambitious, and it gives Blizzard only a few weeks to gather feedback before deciding how far Forever should push away from the original game's feel.
Warcraft III Reforged's First New Story in 23 Years Is Already Out
One of the day's most unexpected reveals wasn't about a future release at all. Warcraft III Reforged got Forsaken Kingdom, a brand new campaign, and it's already available to play.
Forsaken Kingdom fills in the gap between Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, following the aftermath of Arthas' transformation and the fall of Lordaeron as the Forsaken establish themselves in the ruins and build the Undercity. Blizzard says the campaign runs around 30 hours, opening with a four-mission prologue called Last Days of Lordaeron before moving into the main story. It also introduces a new Forsaken Paladin hero.
The campaign arrives alongside Patch 3.0, which updates Reforged's graphics and improves the World Editor, the tool responsible for a huge chunk of Warcraft III's long-term legacy through custom maps. It's the first completely new Warcraft III story in more than two decades, which says a lot about how much unused space Blizzard still sees in its older universes.
Hearthstone Gets the Monk and a Trip Back to the Black Empire
The Monk is finally coming to Hearthstone in March 2027, the card game's first new playable class in six years. Blizzard is introducing it alongside a broader Old Gods-themed expansion.
That expansion, Reign of the Black Empire, launches October 20 and takes players back to when the Old Gods and the Black Empire dominated Azeroth. It introduces a new mechanic called Assemble, which lets players combine cards together to build stronger effects. Blizzard is also reworking Hearthstone's Journal to bring quests, achievements, and events into one place, a quality of life change for a game that's accumulated a decade of systems.
Battlegrounds is getting its own piece of the Old Gods theme too. A new minion type called Aberrations arrives September 22, built around discard mechanics that grow stronger as players work toward awakening an ancient Old God.
Overwatch Reworks Sombra and Roadhog, Adds Doctrine
Overwatch's 10th anniversary provided the backdrop for its own wave of changes. The headline addition is Doctrine, a new Support hero with a vampire-inspired kit, playable at BlizzCon and for a limited window afterward.
The bigger surprise is what's happening to two existing heroes. Sombra is moving from Damage to Support, a significant shift for a character who's always been defined by disruption and hacking rather than healing. Roadhog is also getting a major rework rather than another round of balance tweaks. Both changes land alongside Season 5, which also introduces a new Escort map, Watchpoint: Grímsvötn, and brings the long-running Reign of Talon storyline to a close. Blizzard has already confirmed another Overwatch Spotlight for February 2027 to cover what comes next.
Diablo IV Isn't Done While Diablo V Is Being Built
Diablo V might have taken the spotlight, but Blizzard made it clear Diablo IV still has a full roadmap ahead of it.
Season of Hell's Legacy is the next major seasonal event, tied to Diablo's 30th anniversary and bringing the three Prime Evils, Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, back into focus alongside a returning Deckard Cain. A new class called the Amazon arrives in the first half of 2027, coming from the island region of Skovos and built around bows and javelins, with four archetypes to choose from: Champion, Skirmisher, Ranger, and Commander. Diablo IV is also expanding to a new platform, with the Diablo IV: Age of Hatred Collection launching on Nintendo Switch 2 on September 15, arriving alongside the new season.
World of Warcraft: Midnight Pushes Toward the Worldsoul Saga's End
While Forever looks backward, the modern game is closing in on one of its biggest story arcs. Blizzard revealed Eclipse, the next major content update for World of Warcraft: Midnight, continuing the Worldsoul Saga's confrontation involving Xal'atath.
Eclipse also introduces Talebound, a new action-oriented PvE mode built to sit outside the traditional dungeon and raid structure. Blizzard gave another glimpse of The Last Titan too, the expansion set to close out the Worldsoul Saga entirely, though details remain limited since it's still further off than Eclipse.
A Diablo Animated Series Is Coming to Netflix
Blizzard confirmed a Diablo animated series is in development for Netflix, though it's still early. There's no release date, cast, or story details yet. The announcement arrives at a busy moment for the franchise, with Diablo V just revealed and Diablo IV heading into its 30th anniversary content, and it's the clearest sign yet that Blizzard sees Sanctuary as a setting that can work outside of games too.
Xal'atath Joins Heroes of the Storm
Blizzard closed out its Warcraft-adjacent announcements with Xal'atath becoming the newest playable Hero in Heroes of the Storm. She hits the Public Test Realm on September 14, with a full release following on September 28, giving one of modern Warcraft's most important characters another form inside Blizzard's hero brawler.
Blizzard Is Rebuilding Its Past While Building Its Future
BlizzCon 2026 Day 1 was only the beginning. Our Day 2 coverage is now LIVE, diving deeper into Blizzard’s plans for World of Warcraft: Forever, its new systems, long-term roadmap, and everything else revealed on the second day of the event.
