BlizzCon 2021 is officially canceled, but there will be another version of BlizzConline in 2022

There was no BlizzCon in 2020 due to the pandemic, but BlizzConline earlier this year was a sort of replacement for it. But with the vaccine rollout ongoing, we’ve wondered if there would be an in-person BlizzCon 2021. It is, after all, one of the biggest events for fans of Blizzard games and I can attest from 2019 that it was an amazing event to attend. I still remember with astonishing fondness getting to meet a bunch of you, see some amazing panels, and wander the streets of Irvine late at night trapped between strange cats and dopplegangers.

But Blizzard has revealed that unsurprisingly there won’t be a BlizzCon 2021. I say unsurprisingly because frankly it’s May, and it will be June in less than a week as I type this, and there’s been no sign of any preparations for the event, something that would really have to be in full swing already if it were to happen in time for a late October/early November convention. BlizzCon is a big event — while it’s not the biggest convention I’ve ever seen, it does take up the entirety of the Anaheim Convention Center over the course of two days and that’s not something you can pull off without a lot of time spent planning and massaging the logistics.

But there will still be ways for the community to come together and see what Blizzard is up to — another BlizzConline style event is being planned for early 2022, and also there will apparently be smaller in-person gatherings of some kind, although there are no details yet on exactly what those will be or how people can participate in them. It’s disappointing but completely understandable, in my opinion, that this is the path forward — a decision had to be made and it was better to err on the side of caution and give events more time to progress, and as Saralyn Smith said, the sheer complexity of putting a convention worthy of the name BlizzCon together means it has to get started much earlier than six months ahead.

And heck, if we get a BlizzCon 2022, maybe I can actually get to go to it.