BlizzCon 2019 is sailing full speed ahead, but since last year was quite the bore thanks to its lack of announcements, and this year might be a little spicy since Blizzard's recent controversy with the Hong Kong protests, what can we expect from the company's upcoming convention?
From the dates, schedules, price of a Virtual Ticket and our predictions, here's everything you need to know about BlizzCon 2019.
BlizzCon 2019 news: the biggest announcements
- Diablo 4 is official! The next installment of Blizzard's action-RPG series is in development for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, and will take place in a shared open world. Here's everything we know about Diablo 4 so far.
- Blizzard has revealed Overwatch 2, which will feature a brand-new art style, a new multiplayer mode, co-op story missions, new heroes and customizable abilities. Your unlocks from Overwatch will carry over, and Overwatch 1 and 2 players will be able to play together.
- In addition to Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2, Blizzard also revealed a Hearthstone expansion called Descent of Dragons and a World of Warcraft expansion called Shadowlands.
BlizzCon 2019 dates
This year BlizzCon is taking place on Friday, November 1 to Saturday, November 2, and both days will last from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m PDT / 12:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. EDT. However, the opening ceremony for the stream won't kick off until 11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT on November 1.
BlizzCon 2019 Virtual Ticket and live stream
If you're not physically going to BlizzCon 2019, you can pick up a Virtual Ticket on Blizzard's website for $49.99, which gives you full access to the all-day streams as well as some in-game loot.
In World of Warcraft, you'll get a pair of "murloc-ified" faction leaders, Finduin (Alliance) and Gillvanas (Horde), as well as a Wendigo Woolies transmog outfit. You'll also get a two Overwatch skins: Illidan Genji and Tyrande Symmetra. Additionally, you'll score a BlizzCon 2019 card pack (and a Golden Legendary card) in Hearthstone, a BlizzCon spray, portrait and Celestial Deepcrawler mount in Heroes of the Storm, and three Brood War–era unit skins for Ultralisks, Battlecruisers and Carriers in StarCraft II.
Blizzard is also teasing a pair of wings for Diablo III players that are currently in the works.
The Overwatch skins will be available before BlizzCon, but the Diablo III and Hearthstone items will be available on or before December 31, 2019.
BlizzCon 2019 schedule
Between the potentially wild announcements and interesting panels at BlizzCon 2019, you'll be stuck choosing between which stage you want to stream, as some panels will occur at the roughly the same time. Here's the schedule for BlizzCon 2019.
After the opening ceremony on November 1, from 11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT to 12:00 a.m. PDT / 3:00 p.m. EDT, there will be four tournament matches taking place, for Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and StarCraft II. You don't need a Virtual Ticket to access the tournaments, but you will need one to see the panels.
You can watch the Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and StarCraft II tournaments all on Twitch.
Those tournaments will last through the end of the day on Friday, and in between them, there are a couple of panels as listed below:
BlizzCon Friday, November 1
Mythic Stage
- Opening Ceremony: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM EDT
- Coming Soon!: 03:30 PM - 04:15 PM EDT
- Coming Soon!: 04:30 PM - 05:15 PM EDT
- Coming Soon!: 05:30 PM - 06:15 PM EDT
- Coming Soon!: 06:30 PM - 07:15 PM EDT
- Cosplay Exhibition: 08:15 PM - 09:15 PM EDT
- Community Night: 09:30 PM - 11:30 PM EDT
Legendary Stage
- Opening Ceremony (Simulcast): 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM EDT
- Welcome & Pre-show: 03:00 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
- Overwatch World Cup - Group Stage: 03:15 PM - 11:45 PM EDT
Epic Stage
- Opening Ceremony (Simulcast): 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM EDT
- Quarter Century of Warcraft Audio: 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM EDT
- Life at Blizzard: Career & Culture Insights: 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM EDT
- Heroes of the Storm Update: 06:15 PM - 07:00 PM EDT
- Blizzard Animation: The Art of Setting the Scene: 07:15 PM - 08:00 PM EDT
- Hearthstone Update: 08:15 PM - 09:00 PM EDT
- Community Night (Simulcast): 09:30 PM - 11:30 PM EDT
BlizzCon Saturday, November 2
Mythic Stage
- Voices of Azeroth: A Hero’s Journey: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM EDT
- World of Warcraft Update: 02:15 PM - 03:00 PM EDT
- Coming Soon!: 03:15 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
- Overwatch Update: 04:15 PM - 05:00 PM EDT
- World of Warcraft: Q&A: 05:15 PM - 06:00 PM EDT
- Coming Soon!: 06:15 PM - 07:00 PM EDT
- World of Warcraft: Developers' Tales: 07:15 PM - 08:00 PM EDT
- Voices of Overwatch: 08:15 PM - 09:15 PM EDT
- Closing Remarks (Simulcast): 09:45 PM - 10:00 PM EDT
- Closing Entertainment: 10:30 PM - 12:00 AM EDT
Legendary Stage
- Overwatch League 2020: Watchpoint Season Preview: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM EDT
- The Pylon Show Live: 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM EDT
- Stay Awhile & Listen: 03:45 PM - 04:45 PM EDT
- The Writers Room: Building the Worlds of Blizzard: 05:15 PM - 06:00 PM EDT
- Warcraft III: Reforged Update: 06:15 PM - 07:00 PM EDT
- The Art of Diablo: 07:15 PM - 08:00 PM EDT
- CodeCraft: Exploring Blizzard Engineering: 08:15 PM - 09:15 PM EDT
- Closing Remarks (Simulcast): 09:45 PM - 10:00 PM EDT
- Closing Entertainment: 10:30 PM - 12:00 AM EDT
Epic Stage
- Blizzard Art Studio: Diablo: 01:00 PM - 01:15 PM EDT
- Artists at Work: Diablo: 01:30 PM - 02:15 PM EDT
- Blizzard Art Studio: D.Va: 02:30 PM - 02:45 PM EDT
- Artists at Work: Overwatch: 03:00 PM - 03:45 PM EDT
- Blizzard Art Studio: Human Footman: 04:00 PM - 04:15 PM EDT
- Designers at Work: World of Warcraft World Creation: 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM EDT
- Blizzard Art Studio: Sylvanas: 05:45 PM - 06:00 PM EDT
- Artists at Work: World of Warcraft: 06:15 PM - 07:00 PM EDT
- Blizzard Art Studio: Sir Finley Mrrgglton: 07:15 PM - 07:30 PM EDT
- CarBot Live!: 08:00 PM - 09:00 PM EDT
- Closing Remarks: 09:45 PM - 10:00 PM EDT
BlizzCon 2019 Hong Kong controversy
It'll be hard to watch BlizzCon 2019 without thinking about how Blizzard recently banned its pro Hearthstone player Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai from the Grandmasters tournament for sharing his support for the Hong Kong protests.
It was hard not to see the backlash that Blizzard faced, especially on Twitter and Reddit, as both platforms flooded with images of Overwatch's Mei supporting Hong Kong.
Blizzard recently pulled out of its Nintendo Switch Overwatch launch event at NintendoNYC, and was also condemned by the likes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) as well as a few other US Senators and members of Congress. So, BlizzCon 2019 will be awkward at best.
Unlike last year, the questions for BlizzCon 2019's Q&A will be screened before the panels they're associated with, but people will still get the chance to ask those same questions live. However, if you're not going to BlizzCon 2019 in person, you can ask your questions online via a forum thread that'll open up on Friday, November 1.
Given the recent controversy, we're interested to see the kind of questions people will ask. But then again, we might even see any of the spicy ones.
