To help celebrate our theme of togetherness, I’ll be featuring top news from a crucial event for millions of fans and players: BlizzCon. Each year Blizzard Entertainment showcases news and upcoming products for thousands of fans, instilling a deep sense of community with in-depth content and providing a place for friends to congregate from every part of the globe. This year I am hoping to see quite a bit of news centered around Overwatch, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and the upcoming Warcraft film.

Featuring among the opening celebrations on Friday is the first trailer for Duncan Jones’s Warcraft. Early reactions from San Diego Comic Con footage and the 15 second teaser have been hailed the visual effects to be extraordinary.
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After the opening celebrations the convention breaks off into 4 halls, each containing events tailored to showcase competitions, news cinematics, and developer panels.

Alongside those events the Main Stage and convention floor will feature demos for upcoming releases, various vendors for prized BlizzCon swag, and the famed BlizzCon Costume Contest.

“Cosplay Py (Grand Empress Shek’zeer)” photo provided by Blizzard Entertainment

My wishlist for this BlizzCon is to hear some specifics regarding the currently in closed beata Overwatch game, currently estimated to be a game changer among the first person shooter genre. Also I wouldn’t mind hearing some details on the upcoming expansion of World of Warcraft, Legion; revealed earlier this year at GamesCon.

If you can’t attend this awesome event in person, Blizzard also sells a virtual ticket which grants access to a live stream for all panels and events held at BlizzCon. It’s not the same as actually being there, but that doesn’t stop the energy from the crowds hit you as sensational events unfold on the center stage.

Watch this space as news comes in, I’ll be updating it with highlights from the convention along the various trailers. What are you looking forward to from BlizzCon this year? Sound off in the comments!

Day 1:

Day one featured a ton of cool news, at the center being a pair of fabulous trailers. Here is the first trailer for Warcraft:

This is just about everything I would have wanted out of the first trailer: part awesome scoop of Warcraft lore and part excellent visual effects. Now beings the hard wait till June 2016.

The next big trailer is the cinematic for the next World of Warcraft expansion: Legion.

This trailer was loaded with information about how the next expansion will shake down. An alliance between the Horde and the Alliance? The Burning Legion making a serious offensive against Azeroth? This story has been developing since Cataclysm, and the pay off seems huge. The graphics for the trailer are incredibly beautiful, but to see a main character such as Slyvannis fighting alongside former hated nemesis King Wrynn is breathtaking. Not to mention a new classic, finally. It’s going to be a heck of an expansion.

Alongside all this, pre-purchasing options have launced for WoW: Legion and Overwatch. The important take away is that they actually gave Overwatch a tentative release period: Spring 2016. Not to mention also giving a release period of Legion: on or before September 21, 2016.

On the Overwatch front, we got some interesting news on the closed beta. They dub the game, “perfectly balanced,” and note the average game length to be roughly 7 minutes and thirty seconds. The surprise news was that the game is also releasing on the PS4 and Xbox One simultaneously with  the PC.
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Coming sooner is the latest Hearthstone edition,  League of Explorers slated for November 12th. This release is similar to the Gnomes vs Goblins and The Grand Tournament expansions, adding new heroes, mechanics and campaign modes. Visit the Hearthstone Facebook page to check out all the new cards that’ll be added.

Day 2:

BlizzCon day 2 kicked things into high gear with semifinals and finals competitions for Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, and Starcraft II. The first ever Heroes of the Storm world championship was won by team Cloud9, and lead into the announcement of the 2016 circut. Hearthstone and Starcraft II both crowned their world champions; Ostkaka and second time champion sOs, respectively.

The judges have their verdicts with the Contest winners, and just watching the footage from day 1 it was an intense showdown of creativity and dedication. I think it’s a safe bet to say, that the BlizzCon cosplayers can give the SDCC’ers a good run for their money.

Closing out BlizzCon 2015 was a tremendous performance by Linkin Park. The closing acts for BlizzCon are always bittersweet but never lacking in quality and often rivaling the opening acts.

Till next year, BlizzCon!