Blizzard has canceled this year's BlizzCon

You can add BlizzCon to the list of major events that won’t be happening this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although BlizzCon typically happens in November, Blizzard has already made the call to cancel this year’s edition.

The publisher said in early April that it was exploring its options and trying to determine whether BlizzCon would be feasible. “Ultimately, after considering our options, we’ve come to the very difficult decision to not have BlizzCon this year,” the event’s executive producer Saralyn Smith wrote in a blog post. Blizzard is looking into holding an online replacement of some kind, but that likely won’t happen until early 2021.

Along with news and updates about the publisher’s various franchises, a number of esports events usually take place at BlizzCon, including the Overwatch World Cup, the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship (AWC) and major Starcraft II and Hearthstone championships. Smith said Blizzard is “looking into alternatives for supporting some of the high-level competition that would normally take place at the show.”

All regular-season Overwatch League matches and the AWC Battle for Azeroth season were moved to online-only play this year. The Starcraft II grand finals, meanwhile, had already been nixed from this year’s BlizzCon in favor of a new ESL Pro Tour.