The scheduled giant lootbox opening at Blizzcon didn’t go according to plan

As you’d probably gathered, Blizzcon took place over the weekend, and between the reveals of new Overwatch stuff, WoW stuff and Starcraft 2 going free-to-play, there were a number of panels giving fans an insight into Blizzard’s games. One lootbox-themed panel, however, went hilariously off plan.

As reported by PCGamesN, the panel was called ‘Overwatch Presents: What’s in the Lootbox?’ and was themed around a literal giant lootbox that was set to be opened on stage. Hosted by Blizzard Community Manager Josh Engen, it was reportedly open to both real attendees and virtual ticket holders, so many reasonably assumed that the event may be a reveal of some cool new things coming to the game’s lootbox system.

Alas, things took a bumpy turn from the start when the box itself was held up in customs, meaning it and its contents were unable to make the show. So the panel consisted of three YouTubers trying to guess the contents of a box that wasn’t there. A summary from Tumblr user TangoBunny, which has been widely shared on Twitter, describes it as ‘one of the biggest convention trainwrecks since Dashcon.’

After half an hour of guessing, which according to a live report on Reddit included such guesses as Terry Crews himself and Jeff Kaplan in a Widowmaker’s Summer Games skin costume, YouTuber Stylosa was supposedly revealed as the contents of the box dressed as the spray of the Punch Kid from the first Overwatch trailer.

For his part, Stylosa later said via Twitter that he was only asked to step in at last minute, so it appears he wasn’t the original intended contents of the box, but the thing is we still have no idea what was supposed to be in there.

Still, with all the furore around lootboxes of late, it seems rather on the nose an event centered around the opening of one would end in confusion and disappointment.