What you need to know
- Blizzard is a huge developer with a broad swathe of franchises and IP under its belt.
- On Tuesday, the developer revealed it's working on a survival game set in a brand-new universe.
- Blizzard is hiring additional talent to help with the development of the mysterious survival game.
- The reveal comes a mere week after the announcement that Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard in a landmark deal.
Blizzard is well-known for its established franchises like World of Warcraft and Starcraft, but the developer is always looking ahead to what's next. On Tuesday, Blizzard revealed that it's in the early stages of a brand-new survival game, set in a different universe than any previous title, and that it's looking for additional talent to help craft it. Details on the new survival game are scarce, other than that it's coming to PC and console platforms and it's set in a new universe from Blizzard.
The survival game announcement from Blizzard is effectively a call for new developers and talent to join the team and help shape the title, which is likely relatively early in development. Beyond that, all that can be said for certain is that the game is part of the competitive survival genre, and that it's slated to release on PC and console platforms (although which ones specifically aren't mentioned).
This is the first brand-new universe from Blizzard since the release of Overwatch back in 2016, an exciting proposition that means an endless number of possibilities. The concept art in Blizzard's blog seems to feature a portal that spans a familiar modern world and a mysterious fantasy setting. This game may have the potential to be one of the best Xbox games for survival fans, but we'll have to wait for more information from Blizzard before coming to any conclusions.
This announcement comes a mere week after Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard in a massive deal worth almost $70 billion, meaning this enigmatic survival game from Blizzard could soon be an Xbox project. The deal is one of the latest developments in ongoing lawsuits and tensions involving Activision Blizzard and its workplace culture. Blizzard lead Mike Ybarra recently discussed how Blizzard plans to rebuild community trust and protect its employees.
The evolving situation has had significant ramifications for Blizzard and its projects, with changes in leadership and more contributing to the delay of games like Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding this new survival game from Blizzard, but, hopefully, we won't have to wait long to learn more. It's worth mentioning that an unknown Activision Blizzard game under the name "Iris" was recently leaked as part of a larger GeForce Now leak in 2021, but that game may be entirely unrelated to Blizzard's newest project.
