PAX East 2013 Speculation – Warcraft Battles or Heroes of Warcraft ?

Kevin Carrillo (Sixen), Eldorian & DJTyrant (Blizzplanet), Eroldren and Medros (AllThingsAzeroth) have been brewing a barrel of speculations of what Blizzard Entertainment might be announcing today in barely 5 hours from the time of this posting.

The first thought is Blizzard All-Stars. However, Blizzard Entertainment already announced this game at BlizzCon 2011, and attendees even played it. The press invite says Blizzard can’t wait for us to have this on our hands. Blizzard All-Stars has already been on our hands at BlizzCon, and second — why so much secrecy about a game that has already been announced? Unless it’s a brand-new game nobody has heard of yet.

Rob Pardo tweeted recently the announcement is Blizzard’s NEXT GAME.

Considering Blizzard stated in the press invitation this (New Game) is not a sequel, expansion nor related to the Next-Gen MMO Titan — there isn’t a lot of room to speculate on.

The press invite also says “We’ve been working on a little something, different from our other games.” Now this one can be interpreted in two ways:

Different from [Diablo III, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II] — meaning a new IP, or;
Different from [RPG, MMO, RTS] — in which case, the options remaining are: First-Person Shooter (FPS), Handheld game (PS Vita), or Mobile Game (iPad/MS Surface/etc.)

Among some of the creative thoughts circulating among the scholars:

StarCraft: Ghost — The press invite says different to our other games. As stated above it could be interpreted as non-MMO, non-RPG, non-RTS. StarCraft: Ghost was an FPS game. StarCraft: Ghost was postponed (meaning: to put off to a later time). PS4 was just announced and Blizzard is supporting it with Diablo III (PS4).
Project Blackstone — either stand alone new game based on StarCraft, or part of StarCraft: Ghost.
World of Warcraft TCG Online — the Cryptozoic Entertainment World of Warcraft Trading Card Game has been very popular. What if Blizzard brings it to mobile games? Glenn Rane (Blizzard Art Director, Creative Development) recently joined a team of friends and launched a Kickstarter to develop InKarnate … a digital RPG tabletop or Roleplaying-Game Tool Set. What if … WoW TCG Online or WOW RPG Tabletop online?
In late 2012, Blizzard Entertainment claimed the domain name: HEROESOFWARCRAFT.COM and WARCRAFTBATTLES.COM (Mobile games?)

Heroes of Warcraft. Warcraft Battles. This title really sounds like a mobile game. Could it be something akin to Pet Battles, but instead of pets, it’s heroes? I know, that sounds a lot like Blizzard All-Stars, but that’s DOTA-style. I mean … Street Fighter-style. Mortal Kombat-style.

Just the other day, Chris Metzen and Micky Neilson were playing Samurai Showdown2 — for example.

The community has certainly been pulling their hairs on this one ever since the Press Invite, and it just shows how much love and passion we have for Blizzard Entertainment and their video games. Whatever this new game is, it will have a lot of expectations and criticism. Something worth discussing throughout gaming websites, fansites, forums and social media.

IamDeflector shared via Twitter a nice bracket:

Whether any of us was right or wrong, it doesn’t matter no more. The game will be announced within a few hours. Make sure to watch the Twitch Livestream to witness the official Blizzard game announcement.