Blizzard: Six "Proven Property" Titles by 2014

Blizzard's next six releases over the next three years will likely be two for World of Warcraft, two for StarCraft 2 and two for Diablo 3.

Friday during the Citi 2011 Technology Conference, Activision Blizzard COO Thomas Tippl said that Blizzard will release six "proven property" releases over the next three years. These will include two expansion packs for World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2's Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void installments, and the action-RPG Diablo 3. As for the sixth unnamed release, Tipple indicated that it could possibly be a Diablo 3 expansion pack.

As of this writing, Blizzard has not stated anything in regards to the post-Cataclysm expansion packs save for wanting to get them out once a year at the very least. As for the next two StarCraft 2 installments, Battle.net project director Greg Canessa already indicated that Heart of the Swarm will be available in mid-2012. With that in mind, the StarCraft 2 team may close the three-part series by the end of 2014.

So far there's no set release date for Diablo 3 although the team is shooting for a Q4 2011 release. In fact, they're currently getting ready to launch the public beta in the next several weeks. However, Tippl added that the upcoming action-RPG has not been factored into the company's earnings report expectations for the calendar year, leaving room for a possible delay. Still, an expansion pack is expected to hit retail shelves before the end of 2014.

As for Diablo 3 on console, that version wasn't mentioned and may not even be considered as "proven property" given that the Diablo IP hasn't been seen on a console since the original hack-n-slash title landed on Sony's PlayStation console back in 1998. Blizzard's mysterious "Titan" project is also not considered "proven property" given that it's reportedly a new casual MMO separate from the company's existing properties. That said, the company's list of six seemingly consists of PC-based IPs that are currently active and long-standing.

Naturally Blizzard issued a comment debunking any talk about future projects and their release dates. "We haven't made any announcements in regard to plans beyond our current slate," a representative said in an emailed statement. "Currently, we are focused on the next content update for Cataclysm, the upcoming release of Diablo 3, and continued development on Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm."