Activision had Overwatch, Diablo and Starcraft shows in development at Netflix, all three were cancelled

Overwatch, Diablo and Warcraft are Blizzard thee main (and currently only) active franchises. They still remain popular, despite some setbacks, specially with Overwatch 2 having its single player offerings cancelled and dipping in popularity (still solid if you compare it with other games).

Many people would love to see them being taken into other media, like TV shows and movies. With the many, many videogame adaptations coming soon to streaming platforms like Max, Prime Video and mostly Netflix (Arcane, Castlevania, Cyberpunk, Tomb Raider, Splinter Cell, Fallout, The Last of Us) it’s weird that none of them are from Blizzard.

That was not the case a few years ago: Blizzard had planned with Netflix TV shows for Overwatch, Diablo and Starcraft. But in 2020, Activision sued Netflix for poaching employees, and thoseshows were naturally cancelled.

Hints that those shows were in development were found years ago though some employees resumés, but they were never officially announced.

Now, journalist Jason Shcreier confirms those series were in development, in a Reddit comment on a post talking about his new book, “PLAY NICE: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment”.

Of course, Warcraft did get a live-action movie with Legenday Pictures in 2016. It wasn’t a flop, but wasn’t too succesful either. It is weird now that Concord, a game built in the shadow of Overwatch and currently (and likely forever) closed, is gonna get a TV episode in Prime Video’s Secret Level before Overwarch gets its own series…