Well into the second day of BlizzCon 2016 I'd though I'd share some of my thoughts and reactions to the first day of the event. And what an event it turned out to be. As a life-long, or decades long, fan of Blizzard since the release of WarCraft II on PC making the trek this year felt a little bit special.

Scratch that, borderline religious.

BlizzCon is huge, and for anyone with a Virtual Ticket or has watched the presentation in the past, the key difference to being there is the sheer energy and passion that you can feel across the massive Anaheim Convention Center.

To say that they had a few chairs out alongside the main stage for the opening ceremony is an understatement. The stage itself looked like it went on for a hundred metres or so, you can imagine a sea of Blizzard fans anticipating the start of the celebration. The atmosphere was electric.

No surprise that they kicked things off with perhaps this year's biggest success story, Overwatch. And sure, even though everyone was expecting the Sombra announcement the execution was incredible. And I fell for it.

Essentially they introduced a video to showcase the launch of Overwatch, which was great to see. But a minute or so in when the screen started glitching I was totally on the side of it being a small technical fault with the presentation. But it was only a matter of milliseconds before just about three or more people in every row started "ooh"-ing. And when Sombra "hacked" BlizzCon the crowd went nuts. It's the sort of thing you hear about, but to be there with thousands and thousands of Blizzard fans it was incredible.



The opening ceremony was a delight, and although we didn't get a new game, every franchise got some love. With even Diablo 3 getting some wonderful new additions -- more on that in the days to come. Necromancer!

After the opening ceremony, just wandering around the halls was brilliant in and of itself. The statues, play areas, panels, esports arenas, it's huge but with it all coming from Blizzard it's something that felt very different to any other gaming convention that I can think of. And when you factor in that everyone there loves Blizzard and Blizzard games, it takes on a very special quality.

In the coming days be prepared for some in-depth looks at all the franchises, the show itself, and yes, the incredible cosplay.