Overwatch’s new Blizzard-themed map Blizzard World will be released “very early” this year, but not quite as early as some fans have hoped.
Blizzard World is on Overwatch’s public test server, where it’s been since late November. “The map is almost ready for release but not quite there yet,” Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan said on the Overwatch forum. “It won’t be out this week but we are committed to releasing it very early this year.”
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Revealed at BlizzCon 2017 in Anaheim, California in early November, Blizzard World is a Blizzard-themed theme park that brings together most of Blizzard’s games, including Diablo, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and StarCraft. The hybrid map sends players around the park, which is loaded with lore Easter eggs and references. It’s a nostalgic wonderland for Blizzard fans to revel in.
It’s been a long time coming, but it’s just not ready for an official release yet. PC players can still play the map in the Overwatch PTR, but PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will just have to watch from afar.
So what’s very early this year? At this point, we don’t really know—but from Kaplan’s insistence on a release “very early” in 2018, it sounds like a January launch is possible. Kaplan reiterated the early 2018 release in a Developer Update posted to YouTube on Jan. 2. In the video, he outlined Blizzard’s 2018 roadmap for Overwatch—and that included the release of Blizzard World.
