It’s been a difficult year for the folks at Blizzard, and it’s not over yet. At the end of the week, on November 1 and 2, 2019, the BlizzCon in-house exhibition will take place, and as part of it, Blizzard executives are not expected to do much less than a miracle. The official announcement of Diablo 4, the official announcement of Overwatch 2, the next WoW expansion with the rumored name Shadowlands, and then perhaps a remaster for the extremely popular Diablo 2. All of these announcements, if they come (of which Kotaku writer Jason Schreier is rock-solidly convinced) should help the developer studio’s tarnished reputation back on its feet. In the past, Blizzard stood for extremely high quality and gaming fun. In 2019, however, this has taken a back seat, as Schreier writes, and as some of you will certainly agree.

It started with the poorly chosen presentations during BlizzCon 2018, then came the layoffs by Activision Blizzard in February 2019 and subsequent re-postings of jobs that had actually been eliminated. There was a rattle in the box when expectations for the WoW expansion Battle for Azeroth were not always met, culminating not only in the recent scandal involving Hearthstone player Blitzchung, but also in promising projects being discontinued in the eyes of fans. For example, Project Ares, which was supposed to be a shooter in the Starcraft universe. Since the game was never officially announced, there could be no official news about it.

However, as Schreier knows, several Blizzard legends have probably taken their hats in the framework, most notably Dustin Browder, lead designer of Starcraft 2 and game director of Heroes of the Storm, who was probably recalled to Project Ares in 2016 and already left Blizzard several months ago. For many fans of Starcraft 2, Browder is considered the daddy of the strategy game, having been one of the present faces during the development phase of Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. Eric Dodds, formerly director of Hearthstone, and Jason Chayes, also a member of the Hearthstone team, have also left in the meantime and turned their backs on the Irvine studio.