Blizzard Announces New AAA Survival Game For PCs And Consoles

Note: Activision Blizzard is still under investigation by the state of California for serious harassment charges. CEO Bobby Kotick is alleged to have known about such actions within his company – and performed some himself – and shielded the perpetrators from consequences.

After last week's surprise sale of Activision to Microsoft, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra hinted at there being another big announcement coming this week. While it's not on the same level as a $70 billion sale, he wasn't lying, which is a bit of a surprise for ActiBlizz management these days...

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that it was working on its "next quest" in "a whole new universe, home to a brand-new survival game for PC and console." The as-yet-untitled game will be "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."

All of that could mean just about anything, though the concept art at the top of the announcement shows people in modern dress, with a bicycle in the foreground, skyscrapers in the background, and what appears to be a floating castle in the distance. In addition, the job listings at the bottom of the page show a character dressed in a hodgepodge of fantasy-looking armor. So we're probably looking at some merger of the modern day with fantasy elements, though we wouldn't be surprised if there are some high-tech shenanigans tossed in as well, for good measure.

Speaking of those job listings, there's not too much in them that stands out in terms of further describing the game. There are mentions of it being "a world different from any other Blizzard has created," but that might just be hype, rather than any real description of the game as it compares to other Blizzard properties.

While the shine on the company has certainly been tarnished in recent years, it's still big news to hear that Blizzard is working on a new AAA game -- mitigated as that excitement might be by the fact that it's been struggling to finish new installments of its existing franchises, like Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV.

Also, we're likely years away from this game actually being released, and the survival genre effectively turns a decade old this year; the original DayZ mod for ARMA 2 released in 2012. Is Blizzard too late to the party? Or will the new game do what many other Blizzard titles have done, which is to take the best parts of an existing genre and make the whole thing as good as, if not better than, other offerings? We'll just have to wait and see.