Blizzard Entertainment

Where the studio came from

Blizzard's own account of its beginnings is brief. In 1991, three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles started a company together, and a Blizzard timeline names them: Mike Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. They traded as Silicon & Synapse. The name changed within a few years, and the studio that came out of that change kept building on the same foundation. For a reader today the useful part is the date and the founders, because everything the company says about itself rests on that origin.

That early work was not the genre-defining material the company is known for now. The small team took on contract work first, and learned the craft of shipping software before it began creating universes of its own. The order of events explains a durable habit. The studio tends to arrive in a genre late, with a version that is unusually settled rather than first, and the entries that followed in the same categories are the ones that had to answer it.

The franchises, and how long they have run

Blizzard describes itself through its universes rather than through one hit. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, the first game in that series, is dated 1994 in a Blizzard storefront article, and the company marked thirty years of Warcraft with a broadcast in November 2024. World of Warcraft reached twenty years in the same month. Diablo hit thirty years in 2026, and Blizzard noted a decade of Overwatch during BlizzCon 2026. These anniversaries come from the studio's own material, so they can be treated as firm.

The connective tissue is easy to miss. Battle.net started as the service that carried Diablo's multiplayer and grew into the account system and storefront sitting under every Blizzard PC title. Current press boilerplate lists Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and StarCraft as the four universes and names Battle.net separately as the platform where the PC games live. Older catalogue entries, from the early console ports through to Heroes of the Storm, sit further back inside that same structure today.

Who owns the studio now

Blizzard is not independent and has not been for most of its history. Microsoft announced an agreement to buy Activision Blizzard on 18 January 2022, describing an all-cash transaction valued at 68.7 billion dollars. That announcement named Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Candy Crush among the franchises arriving with the deal. Blizzard's own press boilerplate now calls it a division of Activision Blizzard, and states that the parent was acquired by Microsoft.

The purchase completed on 13 October 2023, the date carried by Microsoft's own welcome messages to the incoming staff, and Microsoft has since recorded the closing of the acquisition in the same month in its financial reporting. In practice the change of owner did not alter what Blizzard publishes. The announcements coming out of BlizzCon 2026 were still Diablo, Warcraft, StarCraft and Overwatch projects. What it changed is where budget and platform decisions are made, several levels above the teams building the games.

What BlizzCon 2026 actually announced

BlizzCon returned in September 2026 and the opening ceremony carried the largest news. Blizzard confirmed Diablo V for spring 2029, set in a Sanctuary where Diablo has already won, and named an open-world shooter titled STARCRAFT for spring 2030. Both were shown as cinematic material rather than gameplay, which says something about how early the projects are. Neither carries anything firmer than a season and a year, and no platforms, prices or exact dates were given.

The most concrete item was World of Warcraft: Forever, a third permanent version of the MMO sitting alongside the modern and Classic versions. Blizzard dates the launch to 4 November 2026, with beta opening on 17 September, and says access comes with a normal subscription or game time. The same event confirmed a Diablo animated series in development with Netflix and a Warcraft III Reforged campaign released on the day of the show.

What ships before the big releases

The games announced years out are not what most players will touch next. The 2026 ceremony also dated a set of near-term releases across the older catalogue. Hearthstone's Reign of the Black Empire expansion arrives on 20 October with a new card keyword, and in March 2027 the game gets its first new playable class in six years. Overwatch's current season adds a support hero named Doctrine, with the next Spotlight set for February 2027. Warcraft III Reforged received a new campaign on the day of the show.

Diablo and Heroes of the Storm fill out the same calendar. Diablo IV's Season of Hell's Legacy arrived on 15 September alongside a Nintendo Switch 2 release, and a class pack built around the Amazon follows in the first half of 2027. Heroes of the Storm, a game many had written off, adds Xal'atath as a playable hero on 28 September. None of this is a new universe. It is the studio keeping several older titles alive while the headline projects are still years away.

Quick facts

Founded in 1991, according to Blizzard's own anniversary notes, by three University of California, Los Angeles graduates — Mike Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham — who traded as Silicon & Synapse. Owner: a division of Activision Blizzard, acquired by Microsoft, with the purchase completing on 13 October 2023. Key series: Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and StarCraft, with Battle.net as the studio's own PC platform and storefront. Headquarters: not stated on the official Blizzard or Microsoft pages reviewed for this article, and the studio's own press boilerplate names no city.

Recent announcements, all from the BlizzCon 2026 opening ceremony in September 2026: Diablo V for spring 2029, set in a Sanctuary where Diablo has already won; STARCRAFT, an open-world shooter, for spring 2030; World of Warcraft: Forever, a third permanent version of the MMO, launching 4 November 2026 with beta from 17 September; and a Diablo animated series in development with Netflix. Warcraft passed thirty years in November 2024, World of Warcraft twenty years in the same month, and Overwatch a decade as of BlizzCon 2026.

Should a studio announce games four years early?

The 2026 slate asks players to hold two dates far out: spring 2029 for Diablo V and spring 2030 for the new StarCraft. Announcing that early has a cost. A window turns into a fixed fact in the audience's memory long before the work behind it is settled, and any later slip reads as a broken promise rather than as normal development. Blizzard's own wording is careful here, giving seasons instead of days for both projects and promising detail later.

The argument on the other side is that the studio has previously been criticised for saying nothing at all. A reveal that names the project, the premise and an approximate window closes that gap and lets the community react before a large budget is locked in and hard to change. Which approach works depends less on the announcement than on what follows it. Diablo V is promised regular updates from 2027, and that schedule is where the claim gets tested.

Games

• Blackthorne
• Diablo II: Resurrected
• Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
• Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer
• Diablo Immortal
• Diablo IV
• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• Hearthstone
• Heroes of the Storm
• LoverWatch
• Odyssey
• Overwatch 2: Watchpoint Pack
• Overwatch League™ - 100 League Tokens
• Overwatch Rush
• Overwatch: Collector's Edition
• Overwatch: Game of the Year Edition
• Overwatch: Legendary Edition
• Overwatch: Origins Edition
• Overwatch® 2 - 1000 Overwatch Coins
• Overwatch® 2 - 10000 (+5000 Bonus) Overwatch Coins - Limited Time!
• Overwatch® 2 - 2000 (+200 Bonus) Overwatch Coins
• Overwatch® 2 - 500 Overwatch Coins
• Overwatch® 2 - 5000 (+2500 Bonus) Overwatch Coins - Limited Time!
• Overwatch® 2 - Complete Hero Collection
• Overwatch® 2 - Hero Collection
• Overwatch® 2 - Invasion Bundle
• Overwatch® 2 - Invasion Ultimate Bundle
• Overwatch® 2 - PlayStation® Plus Mega Bundle
• Overwatch® 2 - Starter Pack: Season Seven
• Overwatch® 2 - Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle: Season 10
• Overwatch® 2 - Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle: Season 11
• Overwatch® 2 - Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle: Season 8
• Overwatch® 2 - Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle: Season 9
• Overwatch® 2 - Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle: Season Seven
• Overwatch® 2 Starter Pack: Season 11
• Overwatch® 2 Starter Pack: Season 8
• Overwatch® 2: Complete Hero Collection Upgrade
• Overwatch® 2: Invasion Ultimate Bundle Upgrade
• Overwatch® 2: Pink Mercy Skin
• Overwatch® 2: Reinhardt Mythic Weapon Skin Bundle
• Overwatch® 2: Rose Gold Mercy Bundle
• Rock n' Roll Racing
• RPM Racing
• StarCraft
• StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
• StarCraft: Ghost
• StarCraft: Remastered
• The Death and Return of Superman
• The Lost Vikings
• The Lost Vikings 2
• Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans
• Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition
• Warcraft II: The Dark Saga
• WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness
• Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom
• Warcraft III: Reforged
• Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
• Warcraft Rumble
• Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
• World of Warcraft
• World of Warcraft Classic
• World of Warcraft: Free Trial
• World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Classic
• World of Warcraft: The Last Titan
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic

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