The world has been reeling from COVID-19 for about a year now, with everything having been upheaved from the global pandemic. In the gaming community, many players have come to expect the changes after an entire 2020 of canceled events and conferences.
Blizzard moved their annual conference, BlizzCon, to February rather than in the original November 2020 slot. They’ve also decided to hold the event entirely online to help encourage social distancing, making everything viewable from their streams.
Even better, all of the streams are going to be free to view rather than the cost of a ticket – virtual or otherwise – being needed as it usually is! This means that everyone will be able to participate in the streams to see their gaming news.
Blizzard has released the schedule for the event on February 19th and 20th, being held just a week from today (as of writing this). The first hour from 5 PM EST to 6:10 PM EST will be the opening ceremony across all channels.
Those watching for World of Warcraft will see the “What’s Next” segment from 6:10 to 6:40. From there, the event will transition towards the Deep Dive segment before spending the last hour and a half on the “Voices of the Afterlife.”
If you’re watching for Hearthstone, you’ll see two events, with a Deep Dive segment running from 6:10 to 6:55 PM. After this, the rest of the day will be spent on the Battlegrounds Expedition.
Diablo fans will have their What’s Next from 6:10 to 6:50, moving to a Developer Roundtable at 7 to 7:40 PM and a one-on-one interview with Brom, a legendary Diablo artist. Afterwards, the day will end with the Diablo Deep Dive.
Overwatch will have three events, with an Overwatch 2 Behind the Scenes taking place from 6:10 to 6:50. Afterwards, players will have the Voices of Overwatch until 8:20 PM, transitioning into an interview with music director Derek Duke.
Finally, StarCraft fans will be able to see the StarCraft Legends event from 6:10 to 8:20 PM. This event will showcase professional players facing off from StarCraft and StarCraft 2 as a team for “era-spanning glory.” Afterwards, Blizzard is giving a quick behind-the-scenes look at the early games.
This is only the schedule for February 19th! February 20th has a slue of new events for all the games in the Blizzard franchise as well, helping to round things off for players and viewers alike. While it might not quite be the BlizzCon everyone expected, the BlizzConline is an amazing substitute for an event Blizzard fans look forward to all year.
