Blizzard Entertainment announced today the creation of Blizzard Collectibles, a new line of high-quality statues, replicas and artwork will be designed and produced directly by Blizzard Entertainment.
The Blizzard Collectibles line is launching with multiple existing pieces from some of Blizzard Entertainment’s most popular franchises. Statues of Overwatch’s Reaper and Tracer characters are available for $150 each. Statues of Illidan and Grommash, two characters from the Warcraft series are available for $350 each. The collectable keepsake box featured in Hearthstone is also available for $225.
Blizzard Entertainment created a number of majorly successful franchises over the company’s 26-year history. In 1994, Blizzard Entertainment created Warcraft, a real-time strategy game where players control virtual armies in battle against computer or player-controlled opponents. After three successful entries into the series, Blizzard developed the MMORPG, World of Warcraft in 2004. The game became a massive global success and to this day has remained the world’s most-subscribed MMORPG with over 12 million subscriptions. Blizzard Entertainment released Hearthstone in 2014, a PC card battling game with mobile device support, set in Warcraft’s universe.
The Diablo series is Blizzard’s second successful franchise, launching in 1996. Diablo is an action RPG where players undertake the quest of freeing the town of Tristram from the clutches of Diablo, the Lord of Terror. Players traverse dungeons located under the town as they battle monsters and grain stronger equipment in preparation for the final fight. Diablo received two sequels along with expansions for each game, further detailing the series fictional world. As of May 30, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment confirmed that the series sold over 24.8 million copies worldwide. To celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary in 2016, the studio recreated the original game in Diablo 3, adding it in an update in early 2017.
The company’s third success came through the release of Starcraft in 1998. Like Warcraft, the game is a real-time strategy title that ran off of the engine used to develop the second Warcraft game. The game received an expansion later that year. Starcraft is often praised as one of the benchmarks real-time strategy games of all time. A sequel was released in 2010 with expansions released for it up until 2015. The series gained popularity worldwide and performs especially well in South Korea where competitive matches are often televised. Blizzard Entertainment recently announced the development of a remastered version of the original game, featuring up-to-date graphics and audio.
Overwatch is Blizzard Entertainment’s most recent success released in 2016. The game is a multiplayer hero-based shooter. Players are assigned into two teams with each player selecting one of the game’s 24 pre-defined heroes with unique abilities, movement and attributes. Players compete to raise their rank, unlocking loot boxes as they progress which offer unique dialogue clips for characters, taunt poses and character skins. Overwatch was met with universal acclaim from critics and players for its accessibility and diverse characters. Overwatch continues to receive updates with new characters, maps and skins.
Blizzard Entertainment has plans to release a number of collectables for their new line in 2017. A statue of Widowmaker, a character also from Overwatch is currently available for preorders and will release sometime this year.
