BlizzCon 2026 – Hands-On Previews
There was a ton announced at BlizzCon yesterday, games like a new StarCraft open world shooter coming in 2030, Diablo V coming in 2029, World of Warcraft Forever releasing in November, and a large handful of updates to existing games. I’m sure you’ve already seen the main announcements on day one during opening ceremonies as well as the deep dive panels they held yesterday and today. For this article, I want to just dive into the experiences I had with my BlizzCon 2026 hands-on previews.
Luckily, some of the updates that were announced are live right away for folks at home, which was an awesome surprise. So I’m going to focus on a few things that aren’t out yet like the Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom, Diablo IV Switch 2 edition, and World of Warcraft Forever.
Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom
One of the biggest surprises of BlizzCon 2026 was the announcement of the first new campaign to Warcraft III: Reforged in over 23 years. Warcraft III makes a huge comeback with the brand new campaign Forsaken Kingdom. Forsaken Kingdom offers over 30 hours of new story spanning across a prologue and three chapters.
The story follows the moments of Lordaeron’s fall to the Scourge and how you, a Forsaken Paladin, will help work to establish a foothold beneath Lordaeron, the Undercity. You’ll gain strength in order to face enemies, both familiar and new, in the Scarlet Crusade and the forces of the Scourge. While the new Forsaken Paladin character is the main focus on the Forsaken Kingdom campaign, the new unit will be available to all Warcraft III players, regardless of the version you own.
The visual update is a nice boost without removing the classic visual identity of the series.
The main thing I was able to really talk about, since the demo isn’t long enough to really dive deep into the new campaign, is the new Definitive Edition graphics update. This isn’t a massive graphics overhaul, but it certainly updates it and makes Warcraft III look sharper and really boosts its bright and bold art design and color palette. It updates the fidelity in the land, structures, and character units making it look sharper and more detailed without losing the classic art style. However, you will be able to swap back to the original graphics if that is just what you prefer.
Along with the new campaign and graphics update, there are also some big improvements to the map editing feature. The World Editor is a huge feature for Warcraft III and Blizzard wanted to continue improving that as well. 3.0 update brings a variety of quality of life changes, giving players more control over the land, including lighting effects to further bring their maps to life. The best news for this, is that the Warcraft III: Reforged Forsaken Kingdom and all of its updates is available right now to purchase for any current Warcraft III: Reforge owner. Or, it’s included in the Warcraft Forever Collection which includes the base game, Forsaken Kingdom and the Forever Skyborne Epic Pack.
Diablo IV
Holy moly, the Diablo franchise sure had a big BlizzCon 2026, didn’t it? There were a ton of new things announced like the Netflix animated series, the 30 year anniversary updates across the board, new Diablo IV season updates and the Amazon character, as well as the announcement of Diablo V. However, there was one announcement that plenty of fans will be very excited about, and an absolute no-brainer, Diablo IV on Nintendo Switch 2.
When Diablo III first came to the original Switch, it was a match made in heaven. Easy, on-the-go dungeon raiding was fantastic, and it was still able to look good in mobile. It was only a matter of time that Diablo IV made its way to the Nintendo Switch 2, and what a great time for it to finally come with the Season of Hell’s Legacy launch.
Season of Hell’s Legacy is a huge update featuring the return of the iconic Deckard Cain to voice over the story. The return of the Prime Evils: Mephisto, Tristram, and Baal. Collecting each of their Splinters of Evil will let you decide which Prime Evil’s power to bear and build a reputation through War Plan tied to that Splinter. Waking Nightmares are rebuilt iconic multi-level Capstone dungeons to one-room boss encounters the from the franchises 30-year history.
Soul Splinters that provide additional boons, Shared War Plans shares you War Plans reputation earned across multiple character alts, Legacy Uniques, like fabled relics, are reborn as permanent additions as well as Battle Pass bonuses are being added with Season of Hell’s Legacy. All of this is hitting current platforms and the Switch 2 launch at the same time, September 15th.
I got to sit down and play a chunk of Diablo IV on the Nintendo Switch 2. To no one’s surprise, it runs fantastic. The combat remains its fantastic fast paced hectic style with a ton of action on screen. The framerate remains solid through the cluster of combat thankfully, and the visuals didn’t seem like they needed to be downgraded too much in order to run well here. Fret not, it seems like Diablo IV looks and runs fantastic on the Switch 2, making its frenetic combat and dungeon raiding a perfect on the go option.
The Amazon character class is also finally making a comeback since Diablo II. The Amazon can wield multiple weapons including the iconic bow and will launch with the introduction of the new Javelin weapon type. They’re trying to keep her classic abilities, but also introduce new ones as she will have multiple build playstyles as well. And yes, she will be locked to female only. The Amazon class pack will be arriving in the first half of 2027.
World of Warcraft
Diablo wasn’t the only franchise that had a ton of things announced at BlizzCon 2026, World of Warcraft also got a boat load of good news. They showed the next content in the Worldsoul Saga with World of Warcraft Midnight: Eclipse, Xal’atath is getting ever closer to Azeroth’s Worldsoul. The champions will need to return to the depths of the world and battle their way through the new zone called The Mantle Vault, an ancient place of Titan origin sealed off for thousands of years.
Eclipse is the penultimate content update for World of Warcraft: Midnight so we can expect an ultimate showdown with Xal’atath, and some big raids. The Worldcore is a new 8-boss raid where players carve a path to the center to save Azeroth’s Worldsoul. There is also a 3-boss dungeon, Thraegar’s Stand, that will also provide some updated gear rewards and joins seven other dungeons for season 3’s Mythic+ dungeon pool. Eclipse also introduces the Worldsoul Saga’s first legendary weapon called the Midnight’s Edge as well as three new races that join the Paladin Order: Night Elf Paladin, Forsaken Paladin, and the Darkspear Paladin.
While Eclipse is great news as well as the tease for the finale of the Worldsoul Saga with The Last Titan, what a lot of fans are super excited for is the, slightly bad kept secret of, World of Warcraft: Forever. A lot of speculation and rumors going around that this was going to be World of Warcraft: Classic+ and that is exactly what it is, just dubbed “Forever”. Forever is a new beginning from the team behind World of Warcraft: Classic. This is a reimaging of Azeroth through year one of its content and more.
The team really wanted to emphasize that the star of the show is the world and slow down the combat and action a bit. Bring back that grounded personal aspect that so many people fell in love with. That being said, this isn’t just a retreading of the original game, hence the verbiage Classic “+”. Azeroth will feature previously unseen areas such as the Skyborne elves, who are High Elf exiles forced from their ancient kingdom and are free to join the Horde or Alliance. Witht he Skyborne elves you can explore the lush Riverlands and Mount Hyjal, which still house the remnants of the recent battle against Archimonde.
With the reimaging there will be new areas in the existing zones, new dungeons and raids, and over 1000 new quests across Azeroth. Revamped skill trees, brand new gear, and expanded items are all available to you in this fresh, but familiar, twist on the legendary world. Besides the refreshed zones, skills, gear, items, and quests, there is the cool Campfire feature which changes how friends, and new friends, can cool down and interact with each other. World of Warcraft: Forever is striving to be a nostalgic, fresh, reboot of the series that will bring in old fans and new players. One of those ways is through the new controller support.
During BlizzCon 2026 I was able to get my hands on the new World of Warcraft: Forever demo, and I had to check out the controller support. First off, yes, the game looks great. The updated visuals are a good step up, even if it still looks like that 90’s game you remember. While the general designs and texture work still look dated, it retains that classic art style, but sharper. The biggest change is in the lighting, that is what really helps enhance the world. The demo took me through the opening level of the new race, Skyborne Elves. Exploring the new opening section for the Skyborne Elves was cool and all, but my main focus was the controller support.
I think majority of the of dedicated WoW players will say that controller support cannot work, and that it’s basically sacrilege. I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong, or that the controller support will be on the same level. However, from what I played with it in the opening sections, it worked just fine. Essentially, you can bind moves to the D-Pad and four main face button. Then, you can hold LT + D-Pad/Face buttons, RT + D-Pad/Face buttons, and LT+RT + D-Pad/Face Button. This allows up to 32 different keybinds you can do quickly.
I won’t definitively say that you’ll be doing high level raids with a controller at this point, I’m sure as it gets out there more there will be additional tweaks. However, as it stands currently, it is 100% playable and works on a general casual level. They have thoroughly thought through majority of the inputs you need with targeting, auto run, inventory, and the keybinding for attacks. This is easily an option for those just starting out their WoW journey and I’m almost certain this is the ground work for the inevitable console launch. This is not a rumor, this is just my speculation, Blizzard was absolutely tight-lipped with any of that information during our time around them, but that is just my hunch. Why else would you be pushing controller support?
If you don’t believe me, or you want to give it a go yourself, check out the beta that starts September 17th. If you have an active World of Warcraft subscription you can join and test out World of Warcraft: Forever yourself!
That’s about all I have for you on my hands-on experiences. There is a good chunk of the content I was able to play that was out current day with the world or coming soon to you. Let us know how you like all these updates and new content coming out! I will have my Overwatch and Diablo interviews out soon, so stay tuned for that, but you get something out of BlizzCon 2026 because there seems to be big things in the works for every fanbase!
