In early 2022, Blizzard announced a new IP completely out of the blue, but without a specific name. They only revealed the genre: it is supposed to be a survival game. Now there is new information about the development.
What kind of game is this? There is still not much known about the new game. In January 2022, Blizzard suddenly announced a new survival game with only a few words and a teaser image.
Back then, it was said: They want to venture on a “journey into a completely new universe”, meaning nothing related to StarCraft, Warcraft, or Overwatch. Additionally, the game is supposed to be a “place full of heroes”, apparently an MMO or at least a multiplayer title. Blizzard indeed has expertise in that.
I’ve already completely dissected the teaser and looked at 5 details about the new survival game more closely. Since then, however, there has been silence around the game, and no new info has come, except for the note from Blizzard’s head Mike Ybarra that he has already played it. So it seems to be relatively far along in development.
Now there is a new blog post from Ybarra to wrap up 2022. There, the head gives insight into the past year at Blizzard and reveals new details about the upcoming survival title.
The next year will definitely be exciting. Check out our release list for new games in 2023 and see our highlights here:
Blizzard doubles the team, brings in the head of Far Cry
This is now known: In the blog post, Ybarra explains that the development team behind the new survival game has grown to twice its size during the year. However, we do not know exactly how many developers are currently working on the game.
However, Ybarra reveals that Dan Hay has been hired as the General Manager of the game. Hay was involved as:
- Executive Director of Far Cry 6 and New Dawn
- Executive Producer of Far Cry 3 – Blood Dragon, Far Cry 4, Far Cry Primal and Far Cry 5 (also as Creative Director here)
- Producer on Far Cry 3
In addition, Hay worked as a Senior Producer on Fear 3 and Fracture, among others. It’s hard to derive anything for Blizzard’s new game in terms of gameplay from that, but maybe the title starts with an “F”.
By the way, a survival game is the only right step for Blizzard when it comes to a new IP:
When will the survival game be released? So far, we can only speculate about when and where the new game will be released. With the new information, however, I strongly assume that by the end of 2023, the first playable version in the form of an alpha, beta, or early access will be available.
If Ybarra has already been able to play, the team is now twice as large, and a new head is working on the title, it seems that they are apparently working to finish it soon. On the other hand, Diablo 4 got a new head in 2020 and its release is now not until June 6, 2023.
Still, it would be a clever move to bring the new IP out in 2023, especially with WoW being one year into the new addon and wanting to keep Blizzard fans engaged with new opportunities. However, 2023 will also see a bunch of new survival games, which Blizzard would then have to compete with. I am eagerly waiting.
Here you can find the best survival games for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation
