BlizzCon 2024 Canceled, Blizzard Issues Statement on Future Live Events

comingsoon.net:

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that has been canceled, although the company does have plans for future live events this year. While there won’t be an in-person or digital BlizzCon event for this year, Blizzard promises the event will return in future years, although it may have a different format.

BlizzCon will not be held in 2024 because Activision Blizzard is “approaching this year differently“. The “decision was not made lightly as BlizzCon remains a very special event for all of us,” and the event will return in the future, but there were hints that it may not have the same format as in previous years. The event took on a digital format in 2021 before returning to an in-person event in 2023. There’s a possibility that the publisher may even be looking at a hybrid event.

Activision Blizzard does have “exciting plans for other industry trade shows and conventions like Gamescom”, although they’re making us wait to hear more about them. For now, we do know that there will be several game-specific events. There are the Overwatch Champions Series stops at Dreamhack Dallas and Dreamhack Stockholm.

Meanwhile, there will be “multiple, global, in-person events” for the 30th anniversary of World of Warcraft. These will happen alongside in-game celebrations across many of the company’s Warcraft games. Finally, there will also be appearances at several live-streamed industry events, although none of these were specified in any way.

This isn’t the first time BlizzCon has been canceled. In 2020, the event fell foul of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing restrictions. Two years later, Activision Blizzard decided to cancel BlizzCon 2022 as it focused on developing games, supporting its teams, and reimagining the event. Only time will tell whether BlizzCon will return for 2025 and whether it will retain a familiar format.