Blizzard announces new survival game

With Blizzard being in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, finally we have something new to talk about. Blizzard is creating a survival game—a first for the company, and assuming it pushes through, it will also be the first new IP for Blizzard since Overwatch. 

All we have so far of the game is the announcement, concept art, and news that Blizzard is hiring. 
 

The announcement in the Blizzard blog post states:

"Blizzard is embarking on our next quest. We are going on a journey to a whole new universe, home to a brand-new survival game for PC and console. A place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived. A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored."

The post is accompanied by two pieces of concept art, one depicting a ranger with a reptilian headdress, looking almost like a character from Elden Ring. The other shows two teens discovering a portal to a fantasy world.

A survival game is itself an unusual choice for the company that has made games like Diablo, Warcraft, and Overwatch. Great survival games like Valheim, The Long Dark, Raft, and The Forest emphasize vulnerability to an alien environment and utilizing scarce resources to stay alive for as long as possible. But perhaps a fresh start in a new genre is just what Blizzard needs. It certainly changes things up in what would normally be expected from a Blizzard game.

In terms of hiring, Blizzard is looking to create “a diverse team of developers willing to lend their voices, to listen and to be heard." This seems to be a move to rebuild trust in the company following their recent legal troubles. It’s also important to note that now that Microsoft has acquired Blizzard for $69 Billion, it will have definitely have a say in how this untitled survival game will play out.