BlizzCon 2024 will not happen, Blizzard has announced

Blizzard has announced that it will not be holding a BlizzCon event this year.

A statement on the official Blizzard website says that while the company will be present at other conventions and during various livestreamed events, it will be not be holding its own physical event.

“After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024,” the statement reads.

“This decision was not made lightly as BlizzCon remains a very special event for all of us, and we know many of you look forward to it.

“While we’re approaching this year differently and as we have explored different event formats in the past, rest assured that we are just as excited as ever to bring BlizzCon back in future years.”

Blizzard goes on to say it will soon share “exciting plans for other industry trade shows and conventions like Gamescom“, and that it will be holding “multiple, global, in-person events to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Warcraft”, as well as Overwatch Champions Series events in Dallas and Stockholm.

“While these events are distinct from BlizzCon, we’re harnessing all of our creativity and imagination to ensure that they carry the same spirit of celebration and togetherness,” it says.

“Our hope is that these experiences – alongside several live-streamed industry events where we’ll keep you up to date with what’s happening in our game universes – will capture the essence of what makes the Blizzard community so special.”

BlizzCon returned last year, following a three-year period without a physical event.

In May 2020 Blizzard officially cancelled plans for that year’s event, due to the ongoing challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

In February 2021 it held a digital-only event called BlizzConline, before later scrapping plans for a physical event later that year.

It then planned to hold a hybrid event in 2022 that would mix the formula of BlizzConline with “smaller in-person gatherings”, but this too was cancelled following the emergence of a sexual discrimination and harassment scandal at Blizzard.

During the show’s return in November 2023, Microsoft head of gaming Phil Spencer took to the stage to address fans following the completion of its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Speaking during the opening ceremony, Spencer told the audience that Microsoft would empower Blizzard to continue making the kind of experiences it built its reputation on.