BlizzCon 2024 Bites the Dust: No Fan Celebration This Year
- Update (October 2026): BlizzCon has since returned.
- Blizzard has announced that it won't hold BlizzCon, its annual fan convention, this year.
- "After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024," the company said in a statement on the BlizzCon website.
Update (October 2026): BlizzCon has since returned. After skipping 2024 and 2025, Blizzard held BlizzCon 2026 in Anaheim on September 12 and 13, where it revealed Diablo V for spring 2029 and a StarCraft shooter for 2030. As of a September 18 Kotaku report, Blizzard had not said when the next show will be. Our original April 2024 report follows.
Blizzard has announced that it won’t hold BlizzCon, its annual fan convention, this year.
“After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024,” the company said in a statement on the BlizzCon website.
What Blizzard plans instead
Blizzard plans to take part in industry trade shows and conventions such as Gamescom. It is also planning “multiple, global, in-person events” to mark the 30th anniversary of Warcraft, along with in-game celebrations across its Warcraft games throughout 2024.
Over the coming months, the company said, it will share more details on its launches later this year. These include World of Warcraft: The War Within and Vessel of Hatred, the first expansion for Diablo IV.
Blizzard also told fans the convention will be back: “While we’re approaching this year differently and as we have explored different event formats in the past, rest assured that we are just as excited as ever to bring BlizzCon back in future years.”
A year of big changes at Blizzard
Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October 2023. The deal was valued at $68.7 billion when it was announced in January 2022.
Longtime CEO Bobby Kotick, who had run Activision since 1991, left at the end of 2023.
In January 2024, Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees across Activision Blizzard and Xbox, and Blizzard president Mike Ybarra left the company.
BlizzCon has been called off before
The 2020 show was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. An online event, BlizzConline, replaced it in February 2021.
In October 2021, Blizzard paused plans for a second BlizzConline. It said any future event needed to feel “safe, welcoming, and inclusive”. At the time, the company was facing lawsuits over its workplace culture.
BlizzCon returned in person in November 2023.
The news also follows the end of E3, the games industry trade show. The Entertainment Software Association brought E3 to a close in December 2023.
The 2026 comeback
The 2024 pause turned into a two-year gap. Blizzard skipped 2025 as well, then announced that BlizzCon would return to the Anaheim Convention Center on September 12 and 13, 2026. The show went ahead on those dates.
Blizzard used the opening ceremony for several long-range reveals. According to Blizzard’s own recap on Xbox Wire, the biggest were:
- Diablo V, set in a Sanctuary that Diablo has already conquered, due in spring 2029.
- StarCraft, an original open-world shooter targeting 2030.
- World of Warcraft: Forever, a third version of WoW alongside modern and Classic, launching November 4, 2026, with a beta from September 17.
- Forsaken Kingdom, the first new Warcraft III: Reforged campaign in more than two decades, released during the show.
- An animated Diablo series in development with Netflix.
Will BlizzCon be annual again?
That is still unclear. Blizzard president Johanna Faries closed the 2026 show by thanking fans “until next BlizzCon”, but she did not give a date.
Kotaku asked Blizzard when the next event would be. As of its September 18, 2026 report, it had not received an answer. World of Warcraft: Forever, due November 4, is on our list of October and November 2026 video game release dates.
