Does Blizzard's revival of its classic games signal a return of the 'old Blizzard?'

There's a generation of millennial gamers who are haunted by an entity known as 'old Blizzard,' an allegedly more competent, creative, and virtuous version of the present-day Microsoft subsidiary based in Irvine, California.

For the nostalgia-afflicted, BlizzCon 2026 felt like a nod to those good ol' days of Blizzard—at least in terms of ambition and scale—as developers rolled out a slew of major announcements including World of Warcraft: Forever, Diablo 5, and an open world shooter in the StarCraft universe.

However, the most meaningful moment may have been the very first reveal that occurred on stage, when Blizzard president Johanna Faries received a tepid audience response after announcing that Heroes of the Storm—Blizzard's niche MOBA that had been relegated to bare bones maintenance mode in 2022—would be welcoming WoW big-bad Xal'atath as a new playable character.

Blizzard surely drafted dozens of versions of its stage presentation in the lead-up to BlizzCon, and would have been well-aware that announcing Heroes of …