Blizzard says early Diablo and StarCraft reveals signal confidence in on-time launch

Blizzard has announced its next Diablo and StarCraft games years before they are due because it is confident they will arrive on schedule.

President Johanna Faries gave that explanation in an interview with Bloomberg after the reveals at BlizzCon 2026, the studio's own fan convention. She said the early announcements were meant to convey confidence that the projects will ship on time, according to Video Games Chronicle.

The two games were unveiled during the opening ceremony. One is a new StarCraft open-world shooter, a shooting game set in a large map players can explore freely. The other is the fifth main Diablo game, the studio's long-running dark fantasy series.

Blizzard is aiming for a 2029 release for Diablo, with Spring 2029 given as the release window. The StarCraft game will not follow until 2030 at the earliest. In Diablo V, Sanctuary has fallen and Diablo has won, Blizzard said in its round-up of the ceremony, published on 12 September 2026 and reported by Blizzard.

The ceremony also included WoW Forever, a new variant of World of Warcraft, the fantasy online game in which thousands of players share the same world. No release date was given for that project in the verified material.

Faries was direct about the plan for the long-range slate. She said Blizzard is going to ship, ship big, and ship on time, with all hands on deck to set the projects up for success.

For fans, this means a long wait with dates attached rather than vague teasers. The studio has named the order and the gaps: Diablo first, StarCraft after, with more than three years on the clock for the earlier of the two.

Blizzard had also offered something nearer term. A Diablo Immortal x StarCraft collaboration event, a limited-time crossover between its mobile action game and the science-fiction series, was announced with an event start of 13 May.