Head Of Blizzard Talks 35th Anniversary, BlizzCon, and More | Official Xbox Podcast
The Official XBOX Podcast
Official XBOX Podcast
4.3 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of the Official Xbox Podcast, we're at Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine, California, and we're sitting down with the head of it all: Johanna Faries! We're discussing all of the big updates going on during the company's 35th year anniversary, what it's like to lead such a massive and long-standing company full of creative teams, and of course, the return of BlizzCon.
00:00 Introduction
01:10 Blizzard is in its 35th year. How are you and the team feeling now that the spotlights are out and now that the year is off and running?
02:14 Blizzard Showcase video
03:58 So now that you've been with Blizzard for a couple of years, what would you like people to know about you?
05:32 You've got some major anniversaries this year. The way things lined up with all of these big announcements, was it serendipity or did every team decide to go all in for the 35th anniversary?
07:29 What was the story behind dropping the 2 in Overwatch?
08:58 So, Blizzard is in its 35th year, when you think about the vision for this company, How far down the road do you look?
10:50 Let's talk Blizzcon 2026
13:02 What are you most excited about that is coming down the line here this year?
14:42 Outro
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Games in this podcast range from E to M. |
| 0:02.0 | Hey everybody, welcome to the official Xbox podcast, the only podcast coming to you from Inside Xbox. |
| 0:10.0 | And as you can see, we may be up for a temporary rebrand as we are coming you from Inside Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine, California. |
| 0:18.0 | Now, throughout the week, we have spoken to the Diablo team and the |
| 0:21.1 | Overwatch team who are lining up a huge 2026 for their particular franchises. You |
| 0:25.5 | will definitely want to check out those episodes super informative. You can find |
| 0:28.7 | them on the Xbox YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify or wherever I happen to |
| 0:33.0 | be watching this one. And this week we have also learned that the World of Warcraft |
| 0:36.8 | and Harstone teams are also lining up an incredible year as well. So with everything going on from Blizzard, it feels like the perfect time to catch up with the president of Blizzard. It is so great to see you, Johanna Ferry's welcome to the show. Thank you and welcome to HQ. Thanks for having us here. I'm taking a lot of design notes. I'm like, you know, studio, can we get like some really cool collectibles? |
| 0:57.0 | There's things we can bring back, I think, to make the Xbox podcast a little bit, a little bit better. |
| 1:02.0 | So we talked about it at the top. |
| 1:04.0 | A massive year for Blizzard year in 2026. |
| 1:07.0 | It may be the 25th anniversary for Xbox, but Blizzard is in its 35th year. |
| 1:11.9 | So it really puts things into like a context. |
| 1:14.2 | It's also the 30th anniversary of Diablo. |
| 1:17.1 | A lot of ways of making me feel old this year because I've been... |
| 1:20.0 | Likewise. |
| 1:21.0 | Yeah, from the start, from Diablo, 10 years of Overwatch. |
| 1:24.6 | So I just want to know, how are you in the team feeling now that the spotlights are out there? There was the big broadcast. And now that this year is really |
| 1:31.7 | often running. We're so excited. I'm proud to be a part of it. This has been planned for, |
| 1:38.6 | for months, if not a well over a year. And we can talk more about how it all came together. |
| 1:43.8 | But you're exactly right. I think everyone's all hands on deck. I we can talk more about how it all came together. But you're exactly right. |
... |
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