At one time, Blizzard Entertainment was called the 'people's game company' thanks to franchises like Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, and Overwatch. The label of 'legendary' came naturally before the name Blizzard Entertainment. It dominated PC bangs in South Korea, pioneered the global eSports industry, and elevated games to a new cultural status.
However, now the shadow over that brilliant name is deep. New IP games have vanished, and existing franchises have lost their prominence as they fall behind competing titles. The 2025 Blizzard is content only with reviving past popular titles through graphics remasters, remaining stuck in its former glory.
Blizzard is currently operated under Activision Blizzard alongside Activision, known for the 'Call of Duty' series, and was fully acquired by Microsoft (MS) in 2023, becoming a subsidiary.
◇ Blizzard franchise lagging behind Valorant and POE 2
On the 13th, game research site GameTricks released the first week of April's PC bang market share rankings, clearly highlighting this trend. Blizzard's flagship title Diablo 4 has disappeared from the rankings, while Overwatch has dropped to 6th place behind Valorant.
What replaced Diablo 4 is 'Path of Exile 2 (POE 2),' a hack-and-slash genre game similar to Diablo. Even though this game hasn't been officially released yet, it was selected as this week's 'hot game,' recording a total share of 0.58% and 2.82% within its genre. Its share is similar to the remastered version of Diablo 2 (0.62%), but its weekly growth rate has surged to 105.48%.
POE 2 especially attracts attention by maintaining freshness in its content through the addition of new classes and professions, user convenience improvements, and streamer collaborations. In contrast, despite Blizzard releasing the first expansion for Diablo 4 last October, it has failed to prevent user attrition, with the number of simultaneous Steam users dropping below 10,000.
Overwatch 2 is also being criticized for being at a repackaging level, which is embarrassing for a new title after its release. Even with the addition of new heroes and maps, its share hovers around 5%, lagging behind Riot Games' 'Valorant (7.68%)' in the FPS category.
Blizzard's influence has not only weakened in South Korea. The company has long been pushed out of the leadership position in the global gaming industry. A typical example is eSports. StarCraft led the industrialization effort in South Korea by founding leagues, but StarCraft 2 is merely surviving, and Heroes of the Storm, which was pitched as a rival to 'League of Legends (LOL)', has had its eSports tournaments abolished without warning. The Overwatch League has been rapidly scaled back due to COVID-19 and declining revenue, and even BlizzCon, once a symbol of Blizzard, will not be held this year. The only hint about the next event, pushed to September 2026, is the vague phrase that 'legends will gather again.'
◇ Unresolved uncertainties after the MS acquisition
The issue is that this trend is not a temporary stagnation but a structural decline. Rather than pioneering new genres with creative ideas, Blizzard has succeeded by polishing and popularizing existing systems as a latecomer. Warcraft drew from the systems of Dune 2 and C&C, Diablo inherited the action system from Ultima 8, and StarCraft was inspired by the Warhammer universe. However, this has also been an advantage of being 'a company that benchmarks well', thus it did not draw criticism on its own.
The real problem is that Blizzard can't even properly utilize the benchmarks they once excelled at. Above all, their refined development philosophy, which prided itself on being 'easy to learn but difficult to master,' has also fallen into a rut. The lack of content development capabilities is even more serious.
For several years, Blizzard has continued its 'new title drought' by releasing only remaster versions or content based on past assets like skins and themes. However, this sweet taste of remasters is criticized for stifling innovation. Even the next new title is likely to be announced at BlizzCon 2026, making it hard to expect any new titles before 2027. In the meantime, Blizzard has released remastered versions of 'Warcraft: Orcs and Humans' and 'Warcraft II,' and has refocused on packaging past glory into today's content with the re-release of StarCraft and Diablo 2 remasters.
Blizzard seemed to be entering a new phase after being acquired by Microsoft (MS) in 2023. However, the news since the acquisition has been about restructuring and project cancellations. The unreleased new title 'Odyssey' was scrapped, and many core personnel, including former Blizzard chief Mike Ybarra, have left the company. Last month, the 30th anniversary of Warcraft and the 20th anniversary of World of Warcraft quietly passed. The capital from MS has not resolved Blizzard's crisis, and instead, it has only increased uncertainties.
A representative from a game company stated, 'The gaming market has already changed, and user expectations have also shifted,' adding, 'Whether Blizzard can regain its place at the center of the gaming market ultimately depends on new titles based on new IP, but it seems distant.'