Blizzard Is Working On a Warcraft Mobile Game
Admittedly, the Warcraft franchise is really diverse when it comes to gaming genres and ranges from the aforementioned World of Warcraft MMORPG to Warcraft III real-time strategy and a tabletop game called Small World of Warcraft.
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Finally, something the Warcraft community has wanted for approximately a decade now is actually moving forward. A decade isn’t an exaggeration, either. Warcraft fans have been talking about this ever since mobile gaming surpassed the Java-based games and moved onto iOS and Android systems, which were running better hardware. Finally, all this time later, Blizzard is revealing a long-awaited upcoming mobile entry in the Warcraft series, with the announcement scheduled for Monday, May 3. Here’s the event’s announcement:
This news comes shortly after Blizzard’s reveal of a leaked expansion for its flagship title, World of Warcraft Retail (distinguished from Classic TBC and the upcoming Classic Wrath of the Lich King), which is still going strong nearly two decades after its original launch. Now, the franchise is getting yet another entry, and according to Polygon, the mobile game is being revealed, but the details about the upcoming release are scarce — mildly put.
As per our previous report, the rumors of a Warcraft game for smartphones first appeared in 2017, and after the initial hype, the news was forgotten, while the franchise’s fandom focused more on the worsening state of the World of Warcraft. Admittedly, the game’s narrative had some truly redeeming twists that have apparently fixed some of the burning questions within the game’s lore. Then there was the botched release of Warcraft III: Reforged and 2021’s Diablo II: Resurrection, which only turned away the fandom’s attention farther from the mobile game rumors.
The release window for the game is still unknown and might be revealed in the upcoming event, which will be streamed on Blizzard’s website, but it’s expected to launch sometime this year if everything goes according to plan. Activision Blizzard revealed its plans to launch the Warcraft mobile game in its quarterly earnings. However, how will Microsoft’s acquisition of the company affect the release is still unknown. Like the upcoming game’s genre, other details are still shrouded in mystery.
Admittedly, the Warcraft franchise is really diverse when it comes to gaming genres and ranges from the aforementioned World of Warcraft MMORPG to Warcraft III real-time strategy and a tabletop game called Small World of Warcraft. The upcoming game might take a different approach and dive into a more appropriate genre for the current smartphone gaming scene — like dungeon crawlers, for example.
A dungeon-crawler MMOs are exceptionally popular among mobile gamers, and it’s not outside the realm of possibilities for Activision Blizzard to conceptualize the upcoming Warcraft mobile game as one. This design would align with the recently revealed Diablo Immortal mobile game, which is scheduled to release on June 2 — alongside a beta release of a previously-unannounced PC version of the game that will be released on the very same day.
To be entirely honest, nobody was expecting Blizzard to reveal Warcraft mobile game so soon. The company is continuously updating World of Warcraft across both Retail and Classic versions of the game and trying to fix its botched Warcraft III and Diablo II: Resurrection releases. Not to mention the ongoing legal issues surrounding the sexual harassment lawsuits. But apparently, the company has decided to push things and reveal the game and its development status, enticing the players towards their upcoming mobile release.
