Two huge Blizzard franchises are going to become animated series. The news was revealed in the LinkedIn profile of Nick van Dyk, co-president of Activision Blizzard Studios. Previously, he had produced the Netflix original animated series Skylanders Academy.
Van Dyk’s LinkedIn profile says that he is the “executive producer of Diablo, a TV adaptation of Blizzard Entertainment’s IP, rendered in anime style.” This “anime style” sounds like a perfect reference to another successful video game adaptation, Castlevania. Van Dyk’s LinkedIn profile also revealed, “The show is currently in pre-production for worldwide distribution through Netflix.”
A Diablo adaptation has been rumored since 2018, when Boom! Studios co-founder Andrew Cosby tweeted that he was in final talks with Netflix on the series. “It’s very exciting and I hope to the High Heavens it all works out,” he wrote in the since-deleted tweet. Cosby had stated in a previous interview that if he were to do a Diablo cartoon it would “definitely be rated R.”
The second piece of news in van Dyk’s LinkedIn profile is that he has “developed and sold an animated series based on Blizzard’s Overwatch franchise.”
To be completely honest, the announcement of Overwatch 2 was so boring and looked more like the cinematic for the first original game than something innovative (sequels are supposed to be innovative, aren’t they?). If the Overwatch animated series is going to be something more serious and less filler-like, then the Overwatch community is going to be happy soon.
The third thing that could be found on van Dyk’s LinkedIn profile is that he “authored development strategy for the Call of Duty cinematic and television universe.”
I think most of us would agree that the adaptation of CoD games was always just a matter of time for Activision, but one question is bothering me: which CoD series exactly they are going to adapt? Or it might be something completely new? After all, the only one thing that never changes in CoD games is militarized pathos, so there shouldn’t be any problems with storytelling.
Diablo IV, Overwatch 2 and a new Call of Duty game are in development now with no additional info.
Category: News
