Game news Warcraft, WoW Classic and Retail, Hearthstone… The summary of the announcements that should not be missed during the 30th anniversary live!
Published on 11/14/2024 at 1:34 p.m.
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30 years of Warcraft is worth celebrating. Blizzard celebrated the 30th anniversary of its flagship license last night with a special 45-minute show. The studio did a retrospective on its titles but also talked about the future. Enough to address future projects for WoW, Warcraft and Hearthstone through new features.
30 years of Warcraft, all RTS games affected
If the Warcraft universe has been enriched since then, it was from 1994 through real-time strategy games that it laid its foundations. It's impossible not to celebrate its 30th anniversary without taking a detour to the three Warcraft games. And that's what Blizzard did by making a shadow dropa surprise immediate release without prior announcement, of remastered versions of Warcraft 1: Orcs and Humans as well as Warcraft 2 (Tides of Darkness).
The players' favorite also had the right to a polish. Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos was already released in 2020 in a remastered version called Reforged with the expansion The Frozen Throne. At the time, it made players cringe who pointed out unfulfilled promises. Last night, Blizzard rolled out version 2.0 of the title with many changes. An initiative that already seems to convince players on the networks, even if we will have to wait a few weeks to get a definitive idea of the quality of this second overhaul.
WoW: Mists of Pandaria Classic announced, a new feature planned for Midnight
But obviously, when we talk about Warcraft, it's often World of Warcraft that comes to mind. The game was released in 2004 and has continued its dominance in the MMO genre through the years. It displays exceptional longevity in the field with, as proof, its eleventh expansion (The War Within, deployed in 2024) and its 20th anniversary celebrated this year. A lifespan that Blizzard intends to extend. This is evidenced by the roadmap shared by Blizzard yesterday regarding the current version of the game.
The battle royal Plunderstorm returns. We know when to expect the next major updates of The War Within with 11.1 deployed before spring and 11.2 expected for the beginning of summer. Just after this, the Midnight expansion will be presented in more detail. This is the second chapter of the World Soul saga which we know will include housing : a feature initially planned for the vanilla version of the game in 2004.
Birthdays are an opportunity to celebrate and see what is to come but also to remember how far we have come. The opportunity for Blizzard to announce what's to come (and paradoxically, what's past) for World of Warcraft: Classic. The new phase of the Season of Discovery has been presented. But it is above all the reset of WoW Classic Vanilla as well as the Classic version of Mists of Pandaria (the fourth expansion of WoW) which risk mobilizing players. Launches respectively planned for fall 2024 and spring 2025.
Hearthstone and Rumble: mobile games also at the party, a great first for the card game
10 years since Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft existed. A major step symbolized by an initiative that we expected more from Blizzard. The studio presented the Heroes of Starcraft mini-set. It completes the whole The Great Dark Beyond and features for the first time a license other than Warcraft. Zerg, Protoss, Terran, etc. will be there from January 2025. A tenth anniversary which is also an opportunity for the studio to present the three upcoming expansions for the year of the raptor (spring 2025 – spring 2026) as well as modifications concerning the other game modes, namely Battlegrounds and the arena.
Warcraft Rumble, the last of the siblings, also celebrates its birthday with a round number. It was released last year and is blowing out its last candle. The title seems to appeal to the public but also to Blizzard who decides to launch it in beta in a PC version at the end of the year. In addition to this major announcement, the title deployed an update featuring dual-faction warlords. Sylvanas now represents the Horde and the Undead, while Anu'barak can play as Beast Undead.
A 45-minute show which, although it doesn't have the name, still evokes the BlizzCon of recent years. An event which, if not canceled, should celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.
