Yahoo Finance writer Tae Kim posts some leaks apparently telling us what’s going on at Blizzard with Diablo III, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch.
Some of the statements released to Tae Kim are very strange to say the least but let’s take a look at them all.
First of all Blizzard execs apparently have “low expectations” for Heroes of the Storm and senior staff might be laid off.
The Overwatch business model is said to be still in flux and the game is unlikely to be released this year although they are trying.
Hearthstone has reportedly gone well beyond their expectations reaching 75 million players which is not surprising based on previous numbers released by Blizzard. Blizzard’s next Hearthstone expansion is slated for April
StarCraft 2‘s next game Legacy of the Void is already complete and will be released in the second quarter of this year.
The most concerning rumour in the leak was that the Diablo 3 team has been moved to a new project set in the StarCraft universe and the game will be similar to Digital Extremes’ Warframe and contain gameplay aspects from “Left4Dead, DayZ, Smite, and other MOBAs.”
Since the leak was posted, Blizzard has issued a statement regarding the Diablo 3 rumour:
“The Diablo III team is on continuing to support the game with patch content. We generally don’t comment on rumors or speculation, but I do want to make sure it’s clear that they’re not working on a secret project in the StarCraft universe.”
All rumours and leaks should be taken with a large pinch of salt but the low expectations for Heroes of the Storm may not surprise everyone as we recently found out when we threw Tim into the game for his opinion. That said, there is plenty of interest in the game at the moment with Blizzard selling early beta access for what is a free to play game. It will be hard for Blizzard to push this game beyond their own community because of the popularity of DOTA 2, SMITE, and League of Legends.
The Diablo 3 rumour does sound far-fetched. Blizzard may be experimenting with a new game and team members are likely to have moved around, but culling the Diablo 3 team for a new project seems very unlikely as another expansion will probably appear in the future.
The response from Blizzard does only cover Diablo 3, and has obviously been carefully worded, so it’s hard to ascertain if there’s any truth in the other statements.
