Almost showtime: The Blizzard Watch staff BlizzCon 2026 prediction roundup

It’s finally here: BlizzCon 2026 is poised to rain major announcements and surprise reveals upon Anaheim and viewers at home this weekend. While only time will tell what’s in store, it’s still fun to make predictions (from the mundane to the outlandish) about what news we’ll receive at the first BlizzCon in three years.

The prophecy with the highest chance of ringing true is that I will have a good time. It will be my first time attending in-person, so watch for me darting around the demo stations and convention center halls in a Lore Watch t-shirt.

On top of how long it’s been since the last BlizzCon, we have heard from devs and executives over the last few months that this BlizzCon will be one to remember. With that promise in mind, there’s no such thing as an over-ambitious prediction for what the weekend will bring.

Let’s take a look at everything we think might happen at BlizzCon 2026. Here are this year’s BlizzCon predictions.

Retail World of Warcraft is in a bit of a strange spot announcement-wise right now. We know that The Last Titan is the next expansion, but we’re only halfway through Midnight. Given that Blizzard announced three expansions last time, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to expect a patch 12.2 reveal, a trailer and a bunch of details for The Last Titan, and hints of which direction we’ll be going after that.

As far as specific prognostication, I think we’ll get playable Tuskarr on our return to Northrend. In addition, the inhabitants of that icy continent have been getting some engineering lessons from Mimiron and we’ll get a Tinker/Artificer class. (At least I’m keeping my hopes up.) You can hear me wax poetic about possible next chapters to follow the Worldsoul Saga on this week’s Lore Watch, but I really do think we’ll see a return to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms next in a mega-revamp of historic zones. We’ve been promised a transition from our current epic journey to the next 20 years of World of Warcraft, and returning to where it all started to see how those areas have changed seems like the perfect way to do that.

Anna recalled that we have been promised a new spooky standalone game mode for patch 12.1.7, so it seems like the ideal time to drop details on that. Sara is looking for another Remix announcement for the end of Midnight (Battle for Azeroth or Shadowlands) as well as the ability to group objects together in Player Housing.

Nick has his WoW Classic chips down on an anniversary roadmap that runs through Wrath of the Lich King but stops short of moving on to Cataclysm. As far as the rumors of a mysterious Classic+ that have been swirling for months, nobody was willing to get specific so I’ll throw out this certified tinfoil hat prediction: it will branch Classic off using the Timeways.

Similar to how the Season of Discovery servers added abilities and raids to the original game, this new project will take us back (or forward) in time to historical events on Azeroth (War of the Ancients, Black Empire) or the alternate dimensions we’ve seen glimpses of like Azmerloth and Ulderoth. We’ll get an additional spec for each class and other new features without straying very far from that magical Classic feel.

While BlizzCon has been promised to be packed to the rafters with big reveals, it does seem far too soon for Diablo 5. A new expansion and details on the imminent Season 15 seem like sure things, and Liz H. has high hopes for an Amazon class joining the Diablo 4 lineup. But mysterious twin 7-hour-long Diablo Immortal events have the community speculating on what else might be in store.

Liz P. is betting her hoards of gold coins on a Diablo 1 remaster announced as part of this year’s 30th anniversary celebrations. With Diablo 2: Resurrected celebrating its own five year anniversary this month, an updated version of the original Diablo seems like a total win. I’ll add a mini-prediction on top: I think this announcement will conclude with “you can play it… right now” just like several other recent remasters.

The next expansion for Hearthstone finishes out the Year of the Scarab, and the preview for this era of the game included a BlizzCon logo with an icy lock across it in place of the final expansion in the set. It’s a slam dunk to claim that we’ll find out what that expansion will be, but if I had to forecast details then I’d say it was time for a Pandaren brewing expansion.

We’ve had Monks in World of Warcraft for 14 years, it’s been four years since Hearthstone added a class, and players have had it on their wish list for the entire run of the game. What better way to roll out the Monk card set than with a craft beer celebration expansion aligned with Oktoberfest and other brew-tastic harvest holidays around the world?

There’s not a lot happening at the Overwatch water cooler in the Blizzard Watch offices. A cinematic, a new hero reveal or two, and some Witcher 3 or Spawn tie-in skins rounded out the conversation.

Liz H. threw out the possibility of an animated series. I have to agree that the time is ripe for Blizzard to try their hand at the big screen (or streaming device) once again, and Overwatch seems like a strong contender for a familiar-yet-new story to be told. I’ll even give you a ridiculous rider to that prediction: the Questwatch livestream event with Matt Mercer running an Overwatch TTRPG will serve as the jump-off point for the characters and story.

The rumblings among StarCraft fans have been growing in the last few weeks. Attentive observers like Liz H. have noticed an uptick in the game’s presence in key art and in Microsoft’s general Blizzard imagery and speculated that there must be something on the horizon.

Could the major new game announcement of BlizzCon 2026 happen in the StarCraft category? There’s certainly the desire among the fanbase, with popular theories calling for a co-op extraction shooter or even the revival of the canceled StarCraft: Ghost single-player stealth action game.

While the rumor mill has been warmed up for months, in September it shifted into white-hot frenzy mode as the official StarCraft website began sending glitchy coded transmissions dated far after the events of StarCraft 2. It’s all but certain that something is cooking in the Koprulu Sector, and StarCraft enthusiasts patient enough to wait out the decade-long drought may be about to be rewarded with the biggest reveal of BlizzCon.

Any time BlizzCon or Heroes of the Storm is mentioned around the Blizzard Watch offices, Cory bursts through a nearby door mid-monologue about its imminent revival. I’ll let his words speak for themselves:

Three years later Heroes of the Storm gets a new full cinematic trailer to go along with Heroes 3.0. It will feature Lilith and Vendetta fighting with whatever the new StarCraft main character is. Nova and Deathwing will cameo, while the trailer ends on a shot of Xal’atath preparing to join the battle. This, of course, means that every major Blizzard franchise will get a new HotS character.

That concludes our roundup of predictions for BlizzCon 2026. The only thing I’m certain of is another show-stopping jacket from Holly Longdale, but I do feel fairly confident that this will live up to the promise of an event to remember for a long time to come. What are your predictions for the weekend?