In a new Blizzard internal article, Blizzard Entertainment President Mike Ybarra looks back at Blizzard Gaming's past year, celebrating the company's cultural development and community achievements in 2023 while looking ahead to 2024.
Hey everyone!It's been a pleasure to see so many people at BlizzCon 2023 - thank you for being a part if you join us in person or **!As 2023 draws to a close, it's a great time to look back at a big year of learning, growth, and joy at Blizzard.
Blizzard games in 2023As we look back on the year, we've put a lot of emphasis on putting people first – both players and Blizzard staff. The World of Warcraft team has been working hard all year round to ensure there's always something fun to do in Age of Dragons and the Nostalgia Suit, and there are more players joining us now than they saw when Age of Dragons launched!
Hearthstone has three expansions. These expansions are all nice and cool. This year we also appointed a new game director, Tyler Bielman, and the team will continue to inspire their creativity. Warcraft Smash Bros. was launched at BlizzCon, and millions of players around the world were immersed in joyful chaos.
The release of Diablo IV is amazing, and the new season is a great example of how the team can grow the game with players. Diablo Immortal is celebrating its one-year anniversary, along with the launch of the first new class in the Dark Universe in nearly 10 years: the Blood Knight.
Overwatch 2 has teamed up with our very own Diablo, One Punch Man, and Le Sserafim for a legendary crossover. 
2023 Blizzard Community Data
Players have created a total of 1 billion characters in Azeroth and Sanctuary.
World of Warcraft's team-based tail king Lesages created 48 million player deaths.
And the place of refuge has a total of 1 trillion monsters by players this year**.
There were also 37 million players who fell under the butcher's scythe.
d.VA's Call Mech caused 26 million kills.
Hearthstone players have opened 15.8 billion card packs in the Inn.
Warcraft players have placed 500 million angry chickens on the battlefield.
Battle.net has 150,000 accounts and has been active for 25 years.
Blizzard culture in 2023
We always say that we want to think of Blizzard's cultural work as our gaming work – a part of it. We're always building and iterating on different initiatives, programs, etc. We believe that great ideas are at the heart of Blizzard and should come from anywhere.
Earlier this year, we relaunched Blizzu and appointed Pamela Burga to our new de&i **We co-hosted hundreds of trainings and events aimed at educating our team and building our internal community, with a total of 11,282 registrations throughout the year!We're launching our new employee network and bringing the Inclusion Nexus back to BlizzCon 2023.
Blizzard 2024Of course, while planning and hosting BlizzCon 2023, we've been planning for next year. 2024 will be a big year for World of Warcraft, with a series of anniversaries on the horizon: the 30th anniversary of the first Warcraft game, the 20th anniversary of World of Warcraft, the 10th anniversary of Hearthstone, and the first anniversary of Warcraft Smash Bros
We plan to host some fun events throughout the year to meet in all of our communities (and across communities!).), and we'll be releasing the first part of WorldSoul Saga, Battle for the Center of the Earth. Hearthstone will bring a new way to play PUBG with friends, as well as even more incredible themes and mechanics in upcoming expansions.
Warcraft Smash Bros. will run through multiple seasons, bringing new mini-games, raids, and more ways to have fun on the go in Azeroth. Diablo IV will have a new season, and its first expansion will also be released in 2024: this will continue the story of Mephisto and Tyrell, and bring a brand new class that has never been seen before in the Diablo universe.
Overwatch 2 will feature three new heroes next year (the Adventurer, the hero codenamed Space Ranger, and the yet-to-be-revealed tank), a new mode, a reworked competitive mode, and more. And then there's the project we're developing. We look forward to sharing more information about these projects with you in due course. As I said at BlizzCon, it's a whole new era for Blizzard – now part of Microsoft games – and there's so much more to go of as we go the extra mile to do what we love to do: build genre-defining games and legendary worlds for everyone to share. I want to end the year by thanking you for your support to our Blizzard team, whether it's through the way you play our games, the content you share with us on social**, and more. This is just the beginning, and we are very excited to be working alongside you.
See you in 2024!Mike · Qwik" Ibarra.