The Firstadopter Column

By Tae Kim

Image Source: Activision Blizzard 

Activision Blizzard’s next Hearthstone expansion is slated for April and the game has passed the 75 million players milestone, according to an employee of the video-game publisher. Overwatch’s business model is still in flux and the next Starcraft 2 game is already done and ready to go; the release date is still not settled but likely to come in the second quarter, the source tells Yahoo Finance.

The Activision Blizzard insider, who could not be named due to the company’s policy on talking to the press, revealed significant details about the company’s current game pipeline.

The insider says Hearthstone numbers “are off the charts.” The next expansion is due to come out soon and will be more PvE focused. The team is also experimenting with a 2 vs. 2 version. Stunningly Hearthstone has more than tripled the last publicly released players number of more than 20 million.

Regarding Overwatch, the insider says the business model is still in flux. They are trying to decide between a free-to-play or expansion type focused model. No matter what, you will initially be able to play the game for free, but how you pay for heroes is still to be decided. The development team is pushing to launch the game this year, but senior executives are skeptical it can be done by then according to the source. There is a tiny chance for a December release, but it’s more likely to come out in early 2016 at this stage.

Hearthstone’s success is beyond even the most optimistic expectations and should be a buffer against the continued year-over-year secular decline of the Call of Duty and Skylanders franchises.

Other key details from the insider:

• Executives have “low expectations” for Heroes of the Storm. The insider thinks many of the senior staff on the Heroes of the Storm team will be laid off.

• The next Starcraft 2 game is already done and ready to go. The release date is still not settled. The current time window ranges from April to June.

• The World of Warcraft team has “quadrupled” its art outsourcing, which has been a bottleneck in the past. The next expansion is almost “feature complete.”

• The insider says the members of the Diablo III team have been moved to a new project set in the Starcraft universe. The game will be similar to Warframe and contain gameplay aspects from Left4Dead, DayZ, Smite, and other MOBAs. It is in early pre-production, which means late 2016 or later.

When asked for comment Activision Blizzard said the focus right now of the Diablo III team “is on continuing to support the game with patch content. We generally don’t comment on rumors or speculation, but I do want to make sure it’s clear that they’re not working on a secret project in the StarCraft universe.”

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