Blizzard plans to bring the Warcraft franchise to mobile sometime this year.
Nothing else is known, other than Blizzard is working on “getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time” and it’s slated for release in 2022.
Speaking on a call to investors last year, CEO Bobby Kotick said Blizzard had “multiple mobile free-to-play Warcraft experiences” in the works, and that the titles are “in advanced development.” The firm feels these titles will “create opportunities for both existing players and new fans to experience the Warcraft universe in entirely new ways.”
The Warcraft series spans three different genres, and the series is made up of five core games: Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness, Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone.
The first three games in the franchise are real-time strategy titles, the forth title to be released is the MMORPG, and the fifth is a card-battler. It isn’t known at present which genre the new Warcraft mobile game will fall into .
The mobile segment of Activision Blizzard does well for the company, so a Warcraft mobile game may indeed bring more folks into the segment’s fold. In 2021, over a billion dollars was spent on Call of Duty Mobile and King’s Candy Crush is still a major cash cow for the company after all of these years.
And let’s not forget there is also a Diablo mobile game in the works too.
Diablo Immortal was announced as being in active development during BlizzCon 2018, and last we heard, it is set to release sometime this year after initially being slated for 2021.
Unfortunatley for Blizzard, the announcement of the title didn’t sit too well with fans, who were expecting a more traditional game from the series to be announced. Luckily for them, a year later, Diablo 4 was revealed. Hopefully, news of a Warcraft game coming to mobile will go down better with fans of that franchise.
Between the “multiple” mobile titles in the works and continued support on current offerings, Blizzard seems to be keeping busy. It still has Overwatch 2 in the works and it is also developing a new survival game for PC and consoles.
News of the Warcraft mobile title came during Activision Blizzard’s Q4 2021 and year-end financials report overnight, with Blizzard reporting revenue of $419 million. This is a $74 million decline compared to the $493 million reported in Q3 2021. This figure is also down year -over-year by $160 million compared the $579 million reported during Q4 2020. Revenue for the 2021 year as a whole also saw a deline. Growth for World of Warcraft was offset by a decline for other titles and the absence of BlizzCon in the quarter .
Monthy Active Users (MAUs) were also down for Blizzard during the quarter by 2 million to 24 million compared to 26 million in Q3 2021. MAUs were down by 5 million year-over-year compared to the 29 million reported during the quarter ending December 31, 2020.
Last month, Microsoft revealed plans to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, despite the current lawsuit pertaining to the latter’s alleged sexual misconduct and discriminatory practices against women.
