Enlarge / Long rumored, finally confirmed. (credit: Blizzard)

Blizzard's latest BlizzCon event sees the longtime PC game maker at perhaps its most beleaguered yet. Game delays , notable departures , botched remakes , smartphone-gaming backlash , and an anti-protester reputation have weighed down what was once a sterling RTS/RPG reputation. That led us to wonder: Can today's streaming-only BlizzCon showcase of games and plans show that the company's recent hires and behind-the-scenes reshuffling are paying off?

In at least one respect, the outlook is optimistic, thanks to an impressive reveal of Diablo II: Resurrected . This long-rumored remake includes everything from both the base 2000 game and its 2001 expansion, Lord of Destruction . At first glimpse, this top-to-bottom remake seems to get everything right that WarCraft III: Reforged got so very, very wrong—and we won't have to wait very long to come up with our own impressions. Sign-ups for D2:R 's technical alpha are now live ahead of the game's launch on PC and consoles "in 2021."

The right balance between preservation and polish?

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  Long rumored, finally confirmed. [credit: Blizzard ]

We've grown increasingly skeptical of Blizzard's sales pitches in recent years, but everything about D2:R strikes us as the right kind of " Blizzard Classic " approach, including the following sales pitches:

Enlarge / That's quite the game-announcement leak there, Blizzard. (credit: Blizzard)

Ahead of this weekend's BlizzCon game-announcement frenzy, two of Blizzard's secrets have sneaked out in the form of a leak. Both revolve around World of Warcraft : one for the latest Shadowlands expansion, and another for the World of Warcraft Classic server option.

In the latter case, 2007's hugely popular WoW expansion pack, The Burning Crusade , will be bolted onto the WoW Classic option inside the Blizzard Launcher starting sometime in "2021." The news comes from an apparent leak of official BlizzCon press release materials , all formatted with official images and descriptions of what's to come, as found on Blizzard's official servers by users at Reddit's WoW community.

As with 2019's official WoW Vanilla launch , The Burning Crusade will return without any new or special features on top of what originally came with the game. You may recall that this expansion pack included a trickle of content drops while Blizzard maintained it before selling Wrath of the Lich King in 2008, and Blizzard's leaked document claims that the original version's update cadence will return: "Content from the original game will roll out in phases, at a cadence paced for the WoW Classic community. Prepare for the opening of the Black Temple, gear up to confront the gods of Zul'Aman, and gather your allies to face the fury of the Sunwell."