Blizzard will release a Warcraft mobile game this year

Activision Blizzard has confirmed plans to release a Warcraft mobile game in 2022.

A year ago today, the publisher revealed that multiple free-to-play Warcraft mobile games were deep in development.

In a quarterly earnings report published on Thursday, the company said at least one of these games will be released this year.

“Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time,” it said.

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Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick previously said the free-to-play mobile games will “create opportunities for both existing players and new fans to experience the Warcraft universe in entirely new ways”.

Last week, Blizzard announced that it is staffing up for work on “a new AAA survival game” for PC and console.

Following the news, studio head Mike Ybarra said Blizzard fans eagerly awaiting updates on some of its established series shouldn’t have to wait too long.

“Blizzard is a big studio and we have talented and growing teams supporting live games as well,” he wrote. “Over the coming weeks, you’ll be hearing more on that from Warcraft and Overwatch. Diablo will follow. Stay tuned!”

World of Warcraft, which has received a new expansion roughly every two years since its 2004 launch, last got one in November 2020 in the form of Shadowlands.

Blizzard has traditionally delivered a series of product updates at BlizzCon each November, but the fan convention has been cancelled for the past two years due to disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

It was scheduled to hold a hybrid event mixing the formula of February 2021’s BlizzConline “with smaller in-person gatherings” in early 2022, but those plans were also cancelled following sexual discrimination and harassment revelations which have tarnished the reputation of the studio and its parent company.

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Xbox owner Microsoft announced last month that it intends to purchase Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion deal – the game industry’s biggest ever by some distance.

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