BlizzCon 2015: Blizzard Expected To Bring The Heat In Anaheim This Weekend

BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment’s annual convention dedicated to their gaming and entertainment franchises, is happening tomorrow and Saturday in Anaheim, California, with a host of scheduled events that seems impossible to fit in just two days. Read on for some of what’s happening, what’s expected, and how you can keep track of BlizzCon with your favorite computer device.

Blizzard Watch has the complete Con Before the Storm party schedule posted, which begins today at 6 p.m. PST. Refer to the site for a list of notable gamers, podcasters, and other online celebrities attending BlizzCon, along with their social media accounts to follow them on.

BlizzCon Opening Ceremony time is scheduled to kick off at 11 a.m. PST Friday. BlizzCon Virtual Tickets are still available on the official site for $39.99. Note that a Blizzard Battle.net account is required to purchase a Virtual Ticket. Blizzard’s Twitch channel will be live broadcasting the opening ceremony, and probably other key BlizzCon events. DirectTV has partnered with Blizzard to broadcast BlizzCon live with a pay-per-view package the same price as the Virtual Ticket.

https://www.facebook.com/Blizzard/photos/a.386411629857.169048.152083869857/10153363064434858/?type=3

BlizzCon action will also be available on Blizzard’s official YouTube channels for their respective titles — World of Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and others. And in a first, the BlizzCon Opening Ceremony will be streamed live on Xbox One via the Xbox Live Events interactive app. Other video game and entertainment media websites will be posting a constant stream of updates, such as IGN’s BlizzCon Hub.

The BlizzCon Opening Ceremony will premiere the exclusive trailer for the upcoming Warcraft movie. First announced back in 2006, the anticipation among Warcraft fans for this movie’s release rivals the anticipation for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Tomorrow’s trailer will hopefully let us know if our trust in it being a good movie is rightfully expected.

War is coming. See the exclusive trailer debut this Friday. #WarcraftMoviehttps://t.co/c2sSLAWU4N

— #WarcraftMovie (@warcraftmovie) November 3, 2015

Four championship finals begin immediately after the BlizzCon Opening Ceremony. The World of Warcraft Arena World Championship, the Hearthstone World Championship, the Heroes of the Storm World Championship, and the StarCraft II WCS Global Finals will see teams of gamers battle it out for championship titles and first place prize money of about $100,000 each.

New announcements are expected during this year’s BlizzCon for many Blizzard titles. World of Warcraft: Legion was announced earlier this year at Gamescom, sans a launch date. Hopefully that announcement will be made here, along with more details about the upcoming expansion.

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void is scheduled to launch November 10, alongside Fallout 4 and Lara Croft: Rise of the Tomb Raider. A lot of info has already been released about Legacy of the Void, but with it launching the same day as those other AAA titles, it’s hard not to think Blizzard may be holding some relatively big BlizzCon announcement back to help tip, or at least balance, the consumer scales on launch day.

A BlizzCon announcement for some new Heroes of the Storm goods is hoped for, since the Heroes of the Storm World Championship is happening here. Heroes of the Storm: Eternal Conflict was announced at Gamescom, and included three new characters from the Diablo franchise. New characters from one of the other franchises could likely be made known here.

A Hearthstone announcement is also foreseeable, by way of new cards and/or new features. The Grand Tournament expansion launched this past August, so it may be too early to expect another one. However, this is BlizzCon, and Blizzard could certainly surprise us all.

Check out the final 8 players at #HWC2015, plus exciting exhibition matches! #BlizzCon https://t.co/Qr22E1hu5y pic.twitter.com/PvE0tXJ78I

— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) November 4, 2015

The BlizzCon Closing Ceremony starts at 6:30 p.m. PST Saturday, and is expected to run well into Sunday morning after the official events have completed. Grammy Award-winning Linkin Park is set to close out the festivities, which will also be available to view live with the Virtual Ticket.

Will you be attending or watching BlizzCon this year? What Blizzard announcements are you hoping to hear?

[Image via en.wikipedia.org / CC BY 2.0]