BlizzCon Schedule Is Live, and the Leak Doesn’t Hold Up

Seven stages spread across six halls of the Anaheim Convention Center. That is the tally on the BlizzCon 2026 schedule page, now live on blizzcon.com. At the top, a tagline sets the tone: "Two days. Every stage. Plan your BlizzCon 2026." Two tabs split the page, one for Saturday, September 12, and one for Sunday the 13th. All times listed here are those shown by Blizzard, in Anaheim local time.

This launch closes a case opened on August 31, when an image posted on 4chan promised a complete rundown ahead of the official one. Our analysis of that leak pointed to the opening ceremony's time slot as the document's first checkable claim. The official BlizzCon schedule has now settled that exact point, and the gap is stark.

Seven Stages, Including One Entirely Dedicated to Diablo

The list comes down to seven names. Main Stage (Hall D), Legends Stage (second floor), Overwatch World Cup Arena, World of Warcraft Stage (Hall C), Hearthstone Stage (Hall B), Classic Cup Stage (Hall A), Diablo Stage (Hall B). Two of them stand out: a stage entirely reserved for Diablo, and a stage dedicated to the very first Blizzard Classic Cup, the inaugural tournament announced on the event's homepage alongside the Overwatch World Cup, the Arena World Championship and the Mythic Dungeon International for World of Warcraft, and the Masters Tour World Championship for Hearthstone.

The Diablo Stage remains the only one of the seven with no published slot at this time, not even the opening ceremony, which airs simultaneously on six other stages. A "DOWNLOAD EVENT MAP" button lets visitors grab the full convention center map, and a selector filters the display stage by stage. Enough to plan a route ahead of September 12, except for Diablo, where the wait continues.

The Ceremony Is at 5:30 PM, the Leak Said 11:00 AM

On the official page, the opening ceremony runs 5:30 PM – 6:45 PM on Saturday the 12th, on the Main Stage in Hall D, with developers on stage. Six other stages broadcast the event simultaneously, making it the only moment shared across the entire venue on this first day.

The August 26 leak told a completely different story. The anonymous image, a 796 KB file named blizzcon2026.png, listed nine timestamped panels and placed the opening ceremony at 11:00 AM, followed by a panel at 1:30 PM. That two-and-a-half-hour gap between the two slots was already, in our August 31 article, what struck us as the strangest part for a convention that usually runs its sessions back to back without such a long break.

Six and a half hours separate the leak's 11:00 AM from the official 5:30 PM. That's too wide a gap to be an approximation or a badly converted time zone. This doesn't prove the document's eight other panels are made up, but it invalidates the one item that could already be checked against a verifiable source, and that was precisely the test we set nine days earlier.

What the Schedule Doesn't Say Yet

Outside the opening ceremony, the panel grid remains empty on the official site. No title, no panel time appears there. The Diablo Stage, despite being identified as a stage in its own right, doesn't show a single slot.

Direct consequence: nothing can be settled today about the three titles attributed to the leak: "Warcraft Fables", "Warcraft Chronicles" and "StarCraft Infantry". They are neither confirmed nor denied, for lack of a grid to compare them against. This silence also applies to Classic+, on which Blizzard has made no public announcement. Our rundown on what we actually know about Classic+ remains the reference point until something changes.

Two matters escape the fog. The Diablo 4 and The Witcher crossover is official: Blizzard has confirmed the partnership with CD PROJEKT RED and explicitly points to BlizzCon for the details, including which Diablo IV class will get Geralt's appearance. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered arrives on Battle.net on September 29. On the competitive side, five tournaments are locked in, including the very first Blizzard Classic Cup.

What's Left to Check on September 12

The grid will fill in waves before the opening. Three signals will make it possible to judge the leak, each carrying a different weight.

1. A panel named « Warcraft Fables » or "Warcraft Chronicles" shows up in the grid. It's the only thing that could vindicate the leak on substance. Without it, those two names fall back to the rank of an uncorroborated rumor.
2. StarCraft is present, or absent from start to finish. The leak promised two panels over two days. One panel would weaken it, zero panels would collapse it.
3. What the Diablo Stage ends up showing. An entire stage reserved for the game and left without a panel would already be a signal, regardless of which names get picked.

Two caveats are worth laying out before September 12. An announced panel is not a playable game, and the gap between the two is often measured in months. A « What's Next » panel doesn't automatically promise an expansion: Blizzard also uses it for ordinary content updates.

The grid will decide. Not the leaks.