Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct: how to watch and what to expect

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In lieu of a BlizzCon announcement, Blizzard Entertainment is holding a 30th anniversary stream to celebrate the Warcraft series’ past and future.

The broadcast promises to feature all Warcraft franchises, from World of Warcraft to Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble, and the even the original series entry: Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. It’ll look back at the history of Warcraft, touch on the future with the Worldsoul Saga, and maybe cap it off with a couple of surprises. Here’s everything you need to know about how to watch.

When is the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct?

The anniversary direct will stream starting at 10 a.m. PT on Wednesday, November 13. There’s no word on how long it’ll be, but it’ll be followed by a “World of Warcraft: 20 Years of Music” concert, which is complete with an orchestra and three choirs.

How to watch the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct

Blizzard will be broadcasting the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct on its official Warcraft channels. It’ll be on Twitch and YouTube, although this year, it’ll also be live streaming on TikTok. You can also watch the stream inside Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble, and World of Warcraft to earn rewards. Blizzard will go into more detail on these rewards at a later date.

What to expect from the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct

20th Anniversary Celebration Launch Trailer | The War Within

As expected from the title of the stream, the anniversary direct will look back at the last 30 years of Warcraft. It kicked off with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, which was a real-time strategy game that offered multiplayer all the way back when it released on November 15, 1994. The MMO World of Warcraft pushed the series into the mainstream on November 23, 2004, so Blizzard knows how to stick to a consistent schedule. The direct will have developers from the series’ history looking back on the last 30 years.

Blizzard will also delve into the future of the franchise. It announced the Worldsoul Saga in 2023, its major storyline that’ll be revealed over three expansions. The first, The War Within, launched on August 26 this year. The other two — Midnight and The Last Titan — will complete the story by 2030. “With the Worldsoul Saga, the World of Warcraft development team aims to usher in the next era of WoW’s gameplay and storytelling with broad-reaching narratives that span multiple expansions and invites players to witness the culmination of 20 years of adventure as they step forward into the next 20 years.”

Viewers can also expect some surprises. “You won’t want to miss a moment — or a single surprise,” the blog post reads.

The stream is happening in lieu of BlizzCon in 2024. Blizzard announced earlier this year that it would not be holding an event, but is seeking to bring it back in the future. Instead, it’s been holding events and making announcements for all its franchises separately throughout the year.

Blizzard and NetEase reportedly cancel a Warcraft mobile MMO

Orc and human facing off for Warcraft promo art.

A Warcraft mobile MMO from Blizzard and NetEase is reportedly canceled after three years of development.

This spinoff project, codenamed Neptune, was a mobile MMO World of Warcraft spin-off that took place during a different time period. Blizzard and NetEase scrapped it due to an unspecified financial disagreement This news comes by way of a Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the game's development. Bloomberg reached out to NetEase and Activision Blizzard for comment on the project's status, but neither company chose to comment on the matter.

Activision Blizzard plans mobile Warcraft, next Call of Duty

Warcraft 3 Reforged main character holds a hammer and stares at the camera.

Activision Blizzard plans to release a new Call of Duty game and mobile Warcraft game in 2022, according to a February 2022 financial results report.
As part of that report, the company went over what investors could expect from Activision, Blizzard, and King in 2022. Notably, a Warcraft game for mobile phones is officially teased for the first time: "Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time."
We've yet to learn the title of this game or see it in action. It'll be the first Warcraft game released since the disappointing Warcraft 3: Reforged in 2020, and the second to hit iOS and Android, following Hearthstone.
In the same report, Activision discussed Call of Duty in great detail. While the teased Call of Duty game is still untitled, this financial results report and a tweet from Infinity Ward heavily suggest that it's Modern Warfare 2. "Development on this year’s premium and Warzone experiences is being led by Activision’s renowned Infinity Ward studio," the results state. "The team is working on the most ambitious plan in franchise history, with industry-leading innovation and a broadly appealing franchise setting." Shortly afterward, Infinity Ward tweeted, "A new generation of Call of Duty is coming soon. Stay frosty."
https://twitter.com/InfinityWard/status/1489346822208249861
"Stay frosty" is an iconic line of John "Soap" MacTavish, a classic Modern Warfare character that was only teased in the 2019 reboot. Considering that 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is widely regarded as the series' best game in recent memory, it's not a surprise that the Modern Warfare 2 rumors are true. A report from Bloomberg claims that this game will still release on PlayStation consoles, which makes sense as the Microsoft acquisition isn't expected to be complete until June 30, 2022.
Despite the acquisition being in progress, developers fighting to unionize, and the delay of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV, this financial results report confirms that we can still expect new games from Activision Blizzard in 2022.

World of Warcraft will finally unite the Alliance and Horde

Human and orc sharing a drink together.

Peace has finally come to Azeroth. World of Warcraft will finally allow players to party together across the two factions. Now players from the Alliance can form a group with Horde players to take down dungeons and raids together. The cross-faction instanced content will be put on the public test server soon for update 9.2.5.

Since the beginning of World of Warcraft, two factions have dominated the fantasy world of Azeroth, the Alliance and the Horde. The opposing factions have been, more or less, in open conflict with each other for almost twenty years. Player versus player content has almost exclusively revolved around this premise, until now.

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