Blizzard working on next-gen MMO

After much speculation that Blizzard is working on an all-new MMO, not just further expansions to its smash hit World of Warcraft, a Blizzard community rep has confirmed that the developer is working on a next-gen MMO.

Back in April job advertisements indicated the existence of an all-new MMO, but Blizzard wasn’t giving anything away, merely stating it had a number of projects hidden away. Later in the year at the Austin Game Developer’s Conference Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime revealed the studio had begun to think about what “to do next”, but stated this would “probably not for a long time”.

Only last month Frank Pearce, executive vice-president of product development at Blizzard, told VideoGamer.com that the team has plenty of stuff they want to do with WoW before thinking about a sequel.

“We haven’t even started to think about a sequel,” he said. “The team still has a huge wishlist of exciting features to add on top of what’s already been implemented since launch. Not to mention, we’re all still playing the game pretty heavily ourselves, and there’s a lot more content that we want to see as players.”

Blizzard might not be thinking about a WoW sequel just yet, but a Blizzard community rep has confirmed that it is working on a next-gen MMO. The confirmation came after members on the official boards caught sight of a new set of job advertisements on Blizzard’s website. The community rep felt something had to be said and gave the first official confirmation that Blizzard is working on a new MMO.

“… it is an unannounced next-gen MMO,” said the rep. “And that doesn’t mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either.”

Given comments made by Blizzard’s Frank Pearce last month it would appear the new MMO is set in an entirely new world to that currently populated by over nine million subscribers.