Credible Blizzard Rumors Flying Rampant

According to FirstAdopter, several fairly credible rumors are out there about Blizzard's various IPs. The column states that Hearthstone numbers are 'off the charts', the revenue model for Overwatch is still up in the air, the next Starcraft II expansion is ready for deployment and, most interestingly, projections for the success of Heroes of the Storm are being lowered.

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.

Read the rest at the link above.