BlizzCon 2021 Digital Event Start Date Set for February

Blizzard has announced that its digital BlizzCon replacement event will run from February 19–20, 2021.

“While circumstances are keeping us from gathering in person this year, we’re putting together a little something early next year to channel the spirit of BlizzCon into the form of an online show,” reads a post on the BlizzCon website. “We still have a lot of planning to do, and it’ll be some time before we’re ready to share more details—but we wanted to provide a heads-up on how you can be a part of the online fun.”

As Blizzard notes, they really don’t have many details to share regarding this event at this time (beyond its clever name, BlizzConline). The website currently focuses on the various community competitions and creative showcases that Blizzard will run as part of the celebrations. For instance, they share an online registration form and rules sheet for a Talent Spotlight competition, Cosplay Contest, and the annual March of the Murlocs. Of course, all of these entries will be submitted digitally.

So far as the actual games go, though, there’s really not much to go off of at this time. Blizzard says that they’re still trying to work out what they’re going to showcase during the event and the specifics of how everything is going to be presented, but it’s honestly difficult to imagine what will be featured during this show.

At the moment, Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 feel like BlizzConline “locks.” Neither game will be released by the time the show starts (based on what we know), and both are among Blizzard’s biggest upcoming titles.

Beyond that, things get interesting. Hearthstone and World of Warcraft‘s next expansions will (seemingly) be released before the start of the show. It’s possible we’ll get a World of Warcraft Classic update during the event, but unless Blizzard reveals what’s next for the game after the upcoming Naxxramas patch, that news likely won’t amount to more than a release date.

We’ve heard rumors that Blizzard may be working on a Diablo 2 remake, but as it stands, it sounds like this digital BlizzCon event will be significantly smaller than previous showcases in terms of reveals and updates to ongoing Blizzard titles. That may prove to be especially true if Blizzard confirms they intend to host a physical BlizzCon show sometime late in 2021. However, it doesn’t seem there are any such plans in place at this time.