Is Blizzard using its biggest franchise too little? At least, that’s what a head of World of Warcraft believes, and wants more.
World of Warcraft is doing well, perhaps better than it has in a long time – not referring to the latest chaotic patch, but in general. Every few weeks there are new contents, the next expansion is on the horizon, and plans are already in place far into the future.
Nevertheless, Blizzard believes that Warcraft has been underutilized. Because leading figures like Holly Longdale think this way, we can probably expect some changes soon.
What was said? In an interview with The Game Business, Holly Longdale, Executive Producer and Vice President of World of Warcraft, shared her views on the Warcraft franchise:
It is a fantastic IP. In my humble opinion, it has been underutilized, and I want to bring it to as many people as possible. And that means evolving what Warcraft means, what it is, and where it’s going. We want it to be accessible.
This “underutilization” of the Warcraft IP obviously leaves many questions open. What is Longdale referring to? Is she only talking about World of Warcraft, or is the plan to expand Warcraft as a whole? How could that look like?
There are many games related to Warcraft – What does Longdale mean?
The community is amused: At least in the WoW subreddit, people seem to view the interview excerpts with humor and apparently believe that Warcraft has been utilized quite extensively. The comment from Rondine1990 with over 3,000 upvotes states:
What if we make a card game out of it? Oh, and a strategy game could also work well, with all the heroes. And since there are already heroes… why not also a MOBA? I’m sure that could get so huge that you could even bring in heroes from elsewhere… wait a minute!
These are, of course, references to the Warcraft-inspired titles of recent decades, such as Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble, and Heroes of the Storm. All of these are games that either have Warcraft as their basis or are at least heavily inspired by it.
For this reason, some find it hard to understand how it’s supposedly been “underutilized,” since there have been several attempts at games. But perhaps Holly Longdale wasn’t even talking about games.
How could the Warcraft franchise grow further? One idea that has been floating around for years and is repeatedly discussed by the community is the implementation of a Warcraft series – whether as a live-action series (similar to The Witcher), as an animated or anime version (like Castlevania), or in an animated style (like Arcane). The community’s hunger for such a series is large, especially after the movie was rather mediocre.
Whether and how Warcraft will evolve remains to be seen. However, we are quite sure that at BlizzCon 2026 in September, we will receive some new information. Perhaps by then we will already know where the journey is headed – and whether we can look forward to entirely new games or other media.
The same interview also discussed that WoW could soon have a community of retirees.
