For a year now, Blizzard has had a new boss: Johanna Faries comes from Call of Duty. In a new interview, she now opens the door to another movie or a Netflix series based on Blizzard’s brands like World of Warcraft. Fans have long been waiting for a second movie after Warcraft: The Beginning in 2016 whetted the appetite for more.
This is the interview with the Blizzard boss: Johanna Faries spoke with a representative of the website Windowscentral. The interview was published on March 11.
She didn’t reveal much there. The main message she wanted to convey was obvious: Anything is possible – everything is changing. The market is changing rapidly, and Blizzard must constantly adapt and learn anew. The teams are flexible, and they seem ready to break with things that were once considered unchangeable rules.
The new motto is to surprise players, be agile, take risks, and sometimes shoot from the hip with flair.
According to Faries, the decision to bring housing to the MMORPG World of Warcraft after 20 years was a decision that stemmed from a large company meeting and came from people who are not necessarily part of the WoW team.
Such “risky, unexpected” moves would create a good vibe around the games.
Blizzard wants to surprise players
What does she say about Blizzard’s future plans? In the interview, Faries is asked about Blizzard’s future plans.
She responds:
We met as a whole company just yesterday and talked about some of our additional future bets. We are in a phase of hyper-learning and hyper-agility, just at the right time to throw a few balls. We are surprising players, reviving them, and renewing them – but not just for its own sake.
The emphasis on renewal apparently raises the question with the interviewer of whether the Blizzard boss could also imagine bringing back Starcraft or Heroes of the Storm. Those are Blizzard’s major “dead” IPs.
However, she did not want to engage in such discussions: She has nothing to announce today, says Faries.
Faries emphasizes: We are Blizzard Entertainment – not Blizzard Games
This door was opened by the Blizzard boss: Instead, she opened the door wide to a second Warcraft film or a series for Netflix. When asked about things like the Mario film by Nintendo, Faries said:
The short answer is that we are considering everything, and I mean that very consciously – and I can’t reveal anything concrete today – but we talked about it just yesterday that we have a strong, collective belief that we are Blizzard Entertainment and not just Blizzard Games or Blizzard Gaming.
Our universes, our iconic IPs can evolve in many interesting, dynamic directions. We must be prudent, responsible stewards of these franchises, right? Not everything will fit, and execution is absolutely important. We are thinking about what we can do, […], so that Blizzard can continue to be a beacon for this kind of … magic and joy.
It is the emphasis on “Blizzard Entertainment – not Games” that opens the door wide to things like a second Warcraft film, which many fans would surely wish for. Blizzard has always been known for its strong imagery and great cinematics.
In fact, the Netflix series Arcane did a lot for the surrounding content of League of Legends – also The Witcher was able to achieve great successes on Netflix and has strengthened the IP. Under the last CEO of Activision Blizzard, such a film was probably not in the cards, but Bobby Kotick is now gone: Warcraft film: Ex-Boss of Blizzard thought it was always a “terrible idea”
