Blizzard: Titan to be "next big thing from us" after Diablo III

Blizzard COO Paul Sams had said the company's next-gen MMO, codenamed Titan, will be its "next big thing" following the release of Diablo III.

Speaking to Gama, Sams said its the game was stretching Blizzard further than any previous project.

"I believe [it's] the most ambitious thing we've ever attempted," he said to the site. "And I feel like we have set our company up to succeed on that. We have some of our most talented and most experienced developers on that team. Many of the people that built World of Warcraft are full time on that other team."

Sams insisted that even though key members are now moving over to Titan, World of Warcraft is still very much on Blizzard's radar.

"We've spent a lot of time over the last number of years transitioning those people off [of World of Warcraft], and having great people below them that were trained up by them to run World of Warcraft. Those people have been doing it for the last couple of years without the assistance of those people that created it."

Sams added: "I see World of Warcraft as having many more years in front of it. We have over 12 million subscribers. We're continuing to grow and we feel very good about them. We're going to continue to support that product for many, many years to come.

"As it relates to that other [MMO], we think that it's going to be very impactful in our industry and, we hope, very impactful to the world. We think that that will be, after Diablo III, the next big thing from us. The thing that we hope will happen is that it will not stop World of Warcraft but we believe will eclipse it."

Blizzard has yet to date Diablo III, although Activision has said it doesn't forecast any 2011 games from the company, despite Blizzard previously saying it's pushing for a 2011 launch.

Two Blizzard titles are expected to hit in 2012, most likely to be Diablo III and the next part in the StarCraft II trilogy, Heart of the Swarm.