Blizzcon 2016 recap: Overwatch League, 'Diablo 3' update, 'StarCraft II' AI

The annual fan expo celebrating Blizzard Entertainment – developer of hit videogame franchises Overwatch, Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft – brought with it several significant updates to some of its biggest games.

Overwatch League

Launched in May as the culmination of one scrapped project and eight years of combined development, team action game Overwatch has become one of the year's biggest releases.

With its emphasis on teamwork and a vibrant roster of characters to choose from, the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC release became an instant success following a positively received public testing phase.

After several developer-endorsed tournaments that were culminating in the inaugural Overwatch World Cup at Blizzcon on Nov 4 and 5, 2016, Blizzard announced plans at the event for an Overwatch League, differentiating itself from eSports tradition with permanent teams and a season-based format. A first season is being prepared for late 2017.

Diablo 3

Prior to Blizzcon, there had been whispers of a new Diablo project as the action-adventure series reaches its 20th anniversary at the end of the year.

There was indeed a new tranche of Diablo content in development, but the slice that Blizzard served up was not a separate project but a free remastered, abridged version of the original for owners of Diablo 3.

Sixteen levels of creature-infested Cathedral crypt have been recreated, as have the 1996 icon's four boss monsters, and are being introduced to the Diablo 3 Public Test Realm this week with a general release set for January 2017.

StarCraft II becomes AI test

A real-time strategy that requires long-term thinking and lightning-fast reflexes, StarCraft II has become the latest leisure pursuit fixed by the eye of Google's artificial intelligence research arm Deepmind.

The Britain-based subsidiary is well known for creating an AI so proficient at territory-expansion boardgame GO that it beat the world's best player in March 2016.

Just as GO's complexity required a truly sophisticated AI to demonstrate mastery, so StarCraft II represents another step-change in challenge.

Blizzard and Deepmind are opening up their initial research to the scientific community, inviting the development of AI programs that can interact with an adapted version of StarCraft II.

"The skills required for an [AI] to ... play StarCraft well could ultimately transfer to real-world tasks," DeepMind's Oriol Vinyals explained. — AFP Relaxnews