I’ve dropped in and out of Diablo 4 on PlayStation 5 regularly since it was released back in 2023; a solo burst of play here, teaming up with a buddy for bits there, and diving back in for the last major expansion in 2024.

However, Lord of Hatred, the game’s second massive content drop, arrived this month (May 2026) and absolutely captivated me with its opening, ensnared me with its continuation of the meta story, and has drawn me right back into Diablo 4 with its excellent new territory and gameplay additions.

I played through the whole expansion in two medium-length sessions over a recent weekend and loved every second of it. It really is one of my favorite expansions I have ever played —genuinely, no hyperbole. And this is not through anything truly groundbreaking or outrageously unique either, but by simply being the essence of what a Diablo 4 expansion should be, and nailing everything from music to story, and from action to new classes to play as. In short, it’s simple but incredibly effective.

An assault on the senses

Right from the very beginning of Lord of Hatred, I knew there was excellence achieved in the combination of the rich Diablo 4 aesthetic and style, as well as the audio and soundtrack.

After a gripping opening scene that sets up a direct continuation of the game’s narrative, I was travelling by ship to the map’s new area of the Skovos Isles — homeland of the Amazons, some might remember — and soon thrown into fights against sentient and evil wave-like enemies and more. It was a few minutes into this, an area that wasn’t even the new map being added, that Ted Reedy’s soundtrack crescendoed (He Is The Tide, in particular) and added its fast-paced rhythms to a chaotic encounter that my attacks almost matched beat for beat, and a soaring melody evoked the sense of an epic movie’s most epic battle scene.

With enemies crashing through ships’ sections, waves battering the hull, bloody, gritty action, and panicked dialogue between characters all competing for space, it was an assault on the senses, but in a hair-raising, spin-tingling, goosebump-giving way. And it was a theme that continued throughout the DLC, occurring multiple times across the new land.

The icing on the cake for us Diablo fans is the importance put on story and lore and story-driven side quests in Lord of Hatred. In short, it’s terrific, and sticks all its landings, big and small. The core main storyline is full of intrigue, a bit of mystery, and extends the main game’s plot superbly well. I found myself instantly re-invested in the narrative and incredibly eager to find out what happened next.

This also extends to the side quests, of which there were some really well-done story-driven quests across the Skavos Isles, and the combination of the focus on lore and story in the new land of Skavos makes Lord of Hatred feel like an expansion Diablo fans like myself have been pining for.

Of Paladins and Warlocks

I’m not downplaying the game’s new additions to classes and combat, and items and upgrades (and more) by talking about them last — that’s just the impact the above elements of Lord of Hatred had on me.

But, it remains that playing as a Palkadin, a holy crusader type that channels power from the heavens above — a class I’ve missed in Diablo — is a blast. One of two new classes added with Lord of Hatred, along with the Warlock, the Paladin’s tanky feel, sword and shield combo, and a raft of holy skills are a joy to use in Lord of Hatred.

There’s nothing more satisfying than battering your enemies with sword and shield attacks before throwing out the shield for a bit of crowd control, before calling to the heavens for some devastating holy lances to be fired into your enemies from the skies above. Sublime.

Throw in a warlock offering a whole different approach for magic players in Diablo, along with a whole raft of new upgrades, modifiers, skills, and items to collect and master, and the new classes really are a triumph.

In the end, Lord of Hatred is a huge success as an expansion to a titanic game in one of gaming’s biggest series.

I massively enjoyed its eight-hour (or so) campaign, and couldn’t wait for the next story beat to happen, while devouring all the visuals and music excellence I could while battering enemies with my Paladin’s shield. It all just works brilliantly and is so well executed from opening to close. It feels like a bespoke-made expansion for the most committed and long-time Diablo fans.

If this is a look at the future of the game — it feels like there’s room for one more expansion to really crescendo, climax, and finish the narrative — then we could be in for fireworks in the future.

In between lifting 40-pound scoops of heavy white snow, I stepped back to ponder Mother Nature's stunning show of force with the Blizzard of 2026. Then I pulled out my iPhone 17 Pro Max to measure if this really was The Storm of this Century.

Hidden inside your best iPhone, like the remnants of grass under the mountain of snow currently on my front lawn, is the Measure app. Introduced back in 2018 as part of iOS 12, it's an incredibly handy digital measuring system that uses augmented reality and the iPhone Pro's LiDAR sensor to measure all kinds of dimensions.

Why was I suddenly so interested in using Measure? If you don't live on the northeast coast of the US, you could be forgiven for not knowing about Bomb Cyclone Hernandez and the feet of snow dumped on places like New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Boston, and Maine during a bona fide blizzard (a snowstorm with sustained winds of 35mph that reduces visibility to near-zero).

Even just eyeballing it, I assumed I had two feet of snow and drifts that approached 3- to 3.5 feet. Where we shoveled, piles of snow reached 4 and 5 feet high.

However, the iPhone offers me an opportunity to get an accurate reading without carrying around a yardstick or jumping in until I'm almost waist-deep in the white stuff.

How to use Measure

Using Measure, which also includes a level, is easy.

I opened the app and then pointed the camera array at the ground, choosing a spot where we had neatly shoveled down from the top of the snow pile to my sidewalk

Measure automatically detects the ground, and once it's done, you can tap to set a start point for your measurement. After that, I slowly pull the phone up while I watch the measurement appear on screen, rolling out almost like a fabric measuring tape. The current total appears midway along the line.

Once I reached the top of a pile, I tapped again to capture the measurement. The first one said 19 inches. I then chose a slightly higher plateau and measured out 22 inches.

I could find higher drifts, but I was looking for whatever represented the untouched (or unblown) totals. I think around 20 inches is where we're at.

If you were in this storm's path and want to know just how much snow you got, don't go hunting for a ruler or yardstick. Just unpocket your iPhone, open Measure, and start collecting and sharing your totals.

I'd love to share more tips, but I have to finish digging out...

• A new Warlock class has been added to Diablo 2: Resurrected
• The class is the first new playable class in over 25 years and is available now as part of the Reign of the Warlock update
• Blizzard has also confirmed that the class will be coming to Diablo 4 and Diablo Immortal this year

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Diablo franchise, Blizzard has added the Warlock class to Diablo 2: Resurrected, and announced that it will also be coming to Diablo 4 and Diablo Immortal this year.

During the Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight, Blizzard shadow dropped Reign of the Warlock, a major content update for Diablo 2: Resurrected, which also introduced the game's first new playable class in over 25 years: Warlock.

"The Warlock is a mysterious, dark scholar who’s spent years studying their taboo craft in the shadows, but no longer. Wield their awesome power to bind demons and wreak havoc upon your foes," Blizzard said.

"Reign of the Warlock brings fresh new Terror Zones, fearsome Colossal Ancients to conquer, alongside player requested quality-of-life changes, and more. Use this powerful new class to carve through the demon hordes, using your dark arts to dominate your foes."

The Warlock is also arriving as a cross-franchise class and will be added to Diablo Immortal in Summer 2026, alongside the game's new chapter, Andariel Rises, which introduces a slate of new campaign updates throughout the year.

Diablo 4's upcoming expansion, Lord of Hatred, which launches April 28, will also receive the Warlock class, as well as Paladin, new endgame systems, the region of Skovos, and more.

According to Blizzardm this Spotlight marks the beginning of a milestone year for the Diablo franchise, "with new major releases and updates leading up to BlizzCon 2026 in September."

Diablo 4 game director Brent Gibson even teased the upcoming event, saying to his colleague in a fake ending for the video, "Are we good? Are we clear? Oh my God, they’re going to freak out at BlizzCon when we announce-" before it cuts out.

Elsewhere, Overwatch 2 has officially dropped the "2" and has reverted to simply "Overwatch" as the game's very first year-long narrative, The Reign of Talon, officially kicked off this week.

The new era of Overwatch begins with Season 1 and will span 2026 through to Season 6, after which a new story and Season 1 will then launch in 2027. 10 new heroes will launch during this time, and the first five are already available.

• Overwatch 2 will be rebranded to just Overwatch
• A year long narrative titled "The Reign of Talon" will start next month and will be told throughout the year across six seasons
• 10 new heroes will be added during this time, alongside brand new skins, events, and game features

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that it's dropping the "2" in Overwatch 2, alongside major year-long plans for the hero shooter.

During the latest Overwatch Spotlight livestream, the studio revealed that less than four years after launching Overwatch 2, the title will be reverting back to simply "Overwatch" when its very first year-long narrative kicks off next month.

"Overwatch is more than just a digit: it's a living universe that keeps growing, keeps surprising, and keeps bringing players together from around the world," Blizzard explained in a press release. "This year marks a huge turning point in how the development team envisions the future of Overwatch, so we are officially dropping '2' and moving forward as 'Overwatch'."

The storyline, titled "The Reign of Talon", will begin on February 10 with Season 1 and will be told across "a multi-faceted, fully-connected story across the entire year" through to Season 6. The arc starts with a new cinematic and will unfold through motion comics, in-game events, new voice lines, animated hero trailers, and short stories.

After The Reign of Talon concludes, a new story and Season 1 will then launch in 2027.

To tell the upcoming story, Overwatch will receive 10 new heroes throughout the year, with the first five dropping when Season 1 begins next month.

They include three characters from the antagonist Talon faction, Domina (Tank), Emre (Damage), and Mizuki (Support), while the Overwatch team will get Anran (Damage) and Jetpack Cat (Support). New heroes are expected to be added between Season 2 and Season 6.

Alongside a UI/UX overhaul, a Competitive Rank Reset, Stadium Hero, Vendetta, and other system and match improvements, Blizzard will add new sub-roles divided between the three existing roles, each with their own specific skills.

Tanks will get Bruiser, Initiator, and Stalwart. Damage is divided into Sharpshooter, Flanker, Specialist, and Recon, and Support will be consist of Tactian, Medic, and Survivor.

A Conquest Meta event, which will offer new missions tied to lore and a plethora of rewards across five weeks, will also be added next season, as well as a new Japan Night map in Season 3, and new collaborations and hero skins to look forward to.

From February 10 to February 23, Overwatch will team up with Hello Kitty & Friends for a crossover that will introduce six themed hero skins for Juno, Kiriko, Mercy, D.Va, Widowmaker, and Lucio.

Reign of Talon will have faction-themed skins, alongside new bundles, regular shop updates, and a new Mythic Hero skin every season, starting with Mercy’s Celestial Guardian and Juno’s Star Shooter in Season 1. Mei will also receive her first Mythic mid-season.

Last but not least, Overwatch will also be coming to Nintendo Switch 2, with the existing Overwatch 2, which is already playable on both Switch platforms, getting a Switch 2 upgrade edition in Spring.

• Diablo franchise head Rod Fergusson is leaving Blizzard
• Fergusson said he's "stepping away" after five years at the company, but didn't announce where he's going next
• He also said that there is "an exciting slate of releases ahead" after he leaves

Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson has announced that he is leaving Blizzard Entertainment after five years.

In a post shared on X / Twitter, Fegusson said that he is "stepping away" from the company after working on the Diablo franchise for five years and releasing four games, although he didn't indicate where he is heading next.

"After five years of driving the Diablo franchise forward with four big launches, it's time for me to step away from Blizzard/Microsoft, sword in hand, and see what's next," Fegusson said.

"The teams are set up for success, with an exciting slate of releases ahead. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together and looking forward to what comes next for Diablo, and for me."

Blizzard president Johanna Faries also commented on the announcement, saying: "Guiding a franchise like Diablo takes rare talent, vision, and collaboration. Thank you, Rod, for bringing all of those in spades. Sanctuary’s future is brighter because of the impact you’ve had!"

Xbox boss Phil Spencer also had some words for Fergusson's departure, saying on BlueSky, "You brought strength, hellfire, and vision to one of gaming’s most iconic franchises. Playing Diablo IV with you was a blast—thanks for everything you gave to the game and the community."

Fergusson is also known for his time as head at The Coalition, where he worked on every Gears of War game across his time at both Microsoft and Epic Games, since the franchise kicked off in 2006.

After 15 years, he went on to join Blizzard in 2020 as the head of the Diablo series, after Diablo 4's announcement in 2019.

Blizzard has since confirmed the news of Fergussion's departure to IGN, but didn't offer any further comment or reason why. There's also no word on who will take over as the head of the Diablo franchise at this time.

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World of Warcraft’s massive Undermine(d) update is due to release this week, featuring the first big content addition to The War Within expansion; one that sees players trade the skies of Dragonflight for an altogether more subterranean locale.

With Undermine(d), Blizzard has come storming out of the gates in 2025 with a brand-new zone, mount mechanics, and a massive number of changes to existing systems. The coolest thing about this update, though? It’s all about goblins - Warcraft’s hypercapitalist mad-cap scientists with a penchant for contraptions, industry, and of course explosives. If you’re already saying to yourself ‘time is money, friend’ in a New York accent then you’re exactly the kind of player this update is for.

I too, am one of those players, so I was keen to sit down with assistant lead quest designer Mark Kelada and senior software engineer Emily Berger from Blizzard to ask a number of questions about Undermine(d). I was interested to hear details about what players can expect with some of the new features, but was pleased when both shared some of the influences and philosophies behind the update, too,

Life in the big city

As shown in the early teasers, Undermine(d) is an incredibly ambitious update that not only presages The War Within’s season two but also brings the legendary subterranean goblin capital of the Undermine to the expansion.

If you’re thinking of the goblin starter zone from Cataclysm, you’re on the right track, but Undermine(d) will double down on that distinctive zaniness that Warcraft goblin-kind are known for. According to Kelada: “You can look around Undermine and see an expression of goblin culture in everything you see - the zone is wild.”

Teaser footage from the Undermine(d) trailer showcases the Undermine in all its glory. Highways snake through multi-story ramshackle structures while floodlights project into the vast subterranean cavern that hosts the city.

While entirely fantastical, the Undermine exhibits a strong influence from real-life cities; something that Kelada specifically alluded to. “The design of undermine really came from places in the real world that we were looking at for inspiration - asking ourselves what makes a city a city? It's usually tall or big buildings. We wanted to make sure that when you were looking at places you felt like you were in that metropolis”.

As a contrast to the more rural, open zones of The War Within like the Isle of Dorn or The Ringing Deeps, the Undermine is an ambitious attempt to cram in a massive amount of content into a densely packed urban zone - something not usually seen outside of central, capital zones in World of Warcraft like Orgrimmar or Stormwind.

The Undermine is a zone that’s been heavily mentioned in the lore up until this point but players have never had a chance to actually walk the streets of the legendary goblin capital. Was it daunting to take on the challenge of finally realizing the Undermine? Not according to Kelada: “We had a lot of fun coming up with stories in the space. Everyone rose to the challenge that was presented with this cool iconic location.”

We clearly need to have a car

Of course, those long highways in the Undermine are just begging to be raced down. “When I looked at that I thought we clearly need to have a car in Undermine,” states Kelada. And so was born D.R.I.V.E. - a new traversal mechanic that will see you piloting a sweet custom goblin hot rod through the streets of Undermine.

In recent years, Blizzard has focused on breaking up the bog-standard mount control system that piloted players through its world for almost two decades for something more dynamic. The recent addition of dragon-riding in the previous Dragonflight expansion sees players constantly maintaining a balance between gliding and swooping in a kind of dynamic mini-game. If you’re immediately thinking of D.R.I.V.E. as dragon riding but on the ground, you're not a million miles off.

“We took a lot of lessons from dragon riding,” states Emily Berger, who was open about the previous mechanic’s influence on D.R.I.V.E. but was also quick to point out the fresh challenges the team faced in bringing this new traversal mechanic to the busy streets of Undermine. “An interesting with the Undermine zone is that it's a lot more dense and populated” stated Emily, admitting that the engineers didn’t have to focus much on collision with Dragonflight’s open skies. With Undermine, the team “worked on the stopping feeling, real velocity physics, and collision so you can move over things, bounce over walls, drift around things, and have that nice feeling impact".

In addition to drifting, boosting, and racing, the new D.R.I.V.E. mechanic will also feature a host of player customization for their cars. You won’t just be giving your ride a fresh lick of paint, but also unlocking components to customize your car specifically to your personal driving style.

How will the players react to this new mechanic? Well, according to Kelada there may be a slight adjustment from the stop-and-start on-a-dime controls that ground mounts have traditionally employed in World of Warcraft. "For some people, like with dragon riding, there's going to be a learning curve. But, as you give it some time you start to understand when to boost and when not to boost, it'll make a lot more sense and you'll connect to the car as a mode of locomotion throughout the zone. It's a lot of fun."

It does look a lot of fun, but will it come to legacy content? I was keen to ask. “There are a lot of conversations about, if this connects to our players, is there something else we can do to take this forward? A horse that drifts would be awesome to see but not something that would make a lot of sense.” Kelada was keen to highlight Blizzard's commitment to acting on player feedback but remained tightlipped on whether D.R.I.V.E. would feature outside of the Undermine. Damn, I was really hoping to blaze around the streets of Orgimmar with my massive collection of mounts.

Help for healers

It’s not just a new zone and driving mechanics that Undermine(d) brings to The War Within. Crucially, the update also presages the expansion's season two and brings key changes to established systems like Mythic+ and the new solo-friendly delve dungeon dives. A particular focus has been put on simplifying certain progression paths and making the content more accessible for a wider range of specs.

"Accessibility is really important and something that we've been striving as a team to do, just overall, in terms of progression, accessibility in mechanics and features," stated Berger, when asked about the overall philosophy behind some of these changes to existing features.

Berger specifically highlighted the plight of beleaguered healers in delves as a particular pain point. Delves, as a whole, have been well received by the player base but the balance between class archetypes has been a common complaint as the non-player character (NPC) companions tend to compliment DPS or tank players over healers. The new tank spec for Bran looks to help alleviate some of these issues by helping those healers form the holy trinity of class archetypes without having to rely on a (human) friend.

“One of the cool things about the new bran spec is that it makes it a lot easier for healers to play and feel involved in the delves system,” said Berger, who also illuminated the main challenges the team faces when trying to make delves (and content in general) more accessible for a wide range of players.

“Specifically with delves, one of the key things is that we have different players with different times where they can come in and play.” states Berger, “maybe they only have 20 minutes where they can run a delve and I think one of the most exciting things that we've been adding to the game is the ability of all types of players of all types of levels to be able to come in and play. The accessibility thing is something that speaks to me and the team a lot."

Finding ways to speak to different players

With a focus on alleviating some of the issues faced by players so far in The War Within and a massive host of new content, Undermine(d) is sure to give players plenty to sink their teeth into until season three later this year. Naturally, I was keen to ask what was next for the long-established game in 2025.

"So, can we expect more next season? Nothing to say on that. But, we're very responsive to feedback on looking to improve the features in the future," states Kelada, further detailing that Blizzard is specifically "finding ways to speak to the different players and the experiences they're looking for. That's really where all this stems from: reacting to feedback on how people want to play World of Warcraft”. Let it be known if you enjoy your new Goblin ride, then.

World of Warcraft’s upcoming Undermine(d) update is out on February 25 and will be followed shortly by season two of The War Within on March 4.

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• Diablo 4 is reportedly coming to Nintendo Switch 2
• YouTuber 'eXtas1s' said Halo and Microsoft's Flight Simulator "aren't the only" Microsoft games coming to Switch 2
• It's claimed that Call of Duty, Tekken 8, Fallout 4, Starfield, and Elden Ring could get a Switch 2 port

A Diablo 4 port is reportedly coming to Nintendo Switch 2, according to a new leak.

The claims come from YouTuber 'eXtas1s' (thanks VGC) who recently discussed the Switch 2 and its potential software in his latest video.

'EXtas1s', who has accurately revealed upcoming Xbox Game Pass titles in the past, touched on recent rumors that Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Microsoft's Flight Simulator will be coming to the Switch successor but then went on to claim that Diablo 4 will also be coming to the console as well.

"These are two of the video games Microsoft will port to Switch 2, but they aren’t the only ones," eXtas1s said on Halo and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

“In fact, here’s a little bit of an exclusive or scoop I can tell you about. According to what I’ve been told, Diablo 4 is already in the works for Nintendo Switch 2, so it wouldn’t be surprising at all if Diablo 4 was released in 2025 on Switch 2.”

It was also suggested that a Call of Duty title could be available on the handheld at some point, as well as more games like Elden Ring, Starfield, Tekken 8, and Fallout 4. However, 'eXtas1s' said discussions around these ports were more speculative, so take this with a pinch of salt for now.

Last week, it was reported that many more third-party games are coming to the Switch 2, including Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, which according to leaker 'NatetheHate', will be among the first AAA titles to arrive on the console.

It was also suggested that Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will make their Switch 2 debut, though the latter is said to be launching in 2026.

Ubisoft also seemingly intends to bring support for two Assassin's Creed games to the handheld, including Assassin's Creed Mirage and Assassin's Creed Shadows.

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• Microsoft observed Star Blizzard engaging in spear-phishing attack
• The group is going after WhatsApp accounts of diplomats and government workers engaged in the Ukraine-Russia war
• The phishing attack uses QR codes

A Russian state-sponsored threat actor has been spotted engaging in a unique cyber-campaign aimed at supporting the country’s war effort against Ukraine.

Researchers from Microsoft Threat Intelligence revealed the Star Blizzard group was recently seen phishing for WhatsApp accounts belonging to diplomats, government officials, defense policy or international relations researchers, and others who, in any capacity, work on the Russia - Ukraine war.

The campaign most likely started in mid-November 2024, with Microsoft warning all users always remain vigilant when dealing with email, especially those containing links to external resources.

Exfiltrating WhatsApp data

The attack starts with an email impersonating a US government official. The body of the email discusses the latest non-governmental initiatives aimed at supporting Ukraine NGOs, and provides a QR code for a private WhatsApp group talking about these matters.

The QR code is invalid, the researchers said, speculating that this might have been deliberate, to get the victim to reach out and ask for a new code. The follow-up email then provides a Safe Link wrapped t[.]ly shortened link that leads to a website with a separate QR code. This one, however, connects the WhatsApp account to a separate device, owned by the attackers.

"This means that if the target follows the instructions on this page, the threat actor can gain access to the messages in their WhatsApp account and have the capability to exfiltrate this data using existing browser plugins, which are designed for exporting WhatsApp messages from an account accessed via WhatsApp Web,” Microsoft’s researchers said in their write-up.

The attack vector is relatively new, they added, speculating that Star Blizzard was forced to adapt after being thoroughly analyzed by the cybersecurity community: "This is the first time we have identified a shift in Star Blizzard's longstanding tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to leverage a new access vector," Redmond concluded.

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• Trend Micro spots sophisticated spear-phishing campaign targeting military and government targets
• It uses almost 200 RDP proxies to gain access to endpoints
• The total number of victims is in the hundreds

AN advanced persistent threat, known as Midnight Blizzard, HAS launched a large-scale spear phishing attack that targeted governments, military organizations, and academic researchers in the West.

The group exploited red team methodologies and anonymization tools, as it exfiltrated sensitive data from their target’s IT infrastructure, cybersecurity researchers from Trend Micro has revealed.

In a report, the researchers said the group utilized a rogue Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and a Python-based tool called PyRDP. The attack starts with a spear-phishing email carrying a malicious RDP configuration file. If the victim runs it, it connects to an attacker-controlled RDP server.

On Russia's payroll

The campaign used 34 rogue RDP backend servers in combination with 193 proxy servers to redirect victim connections and mask the attackers' activities.

Once the victim is connected, the crooks use PyRDP to intercept the connection, acting as a man-in-the-middle (MitM). Then, with access to target endpoints, the attackers could browse files, exfiltrate sensitive data, and more.

While the total number of victims across the entire campaign is unclear, Trend Micro says that approximately 200 high-profile victims were targeted in a single day, when the campaign was at its peak, in late October 2024.

The victims were government and military organizations, think tanks and academic researchers, entities related to the Ukrainian government, a cloud service provider, and entities associated with the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Most of them are located in Europe, the United States, Japan, Ukraine, and Australia.

To put things into more context, it’s worth noting that Midnight Blizzard is also known as APT29, Earth Koschchei, or Cozy Bear. It’s a sophisticated advanced persistent threat group sponsored by the Russian government and under direct control of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). It is known for conducting cyber-espionage campaigns primarily in Western countries.

Via BleepingComputer

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The Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred expansion and its new Spiritborn class have got their hooks in me.

On the one hand, this expansion from Blizzard is just ‘more Diablo 4’ which is great news for fans, returning and new. On the other, this story-based downloadable content (DLC) for one of the recent best RPGs has a particular mix of elements that could prove just as moreish for you as they have for me.

Set directly after the end of the main Diablo 4 campaign, you begin pursuit of the character Neyrelle deep in the jungles of Natanyu in an attempt to uncover Mephisto’s plans. While you can re-embrace the long haul and start a whole new Diablo 4 adventure with the new Spiritborn, you can also, as I did, jump straight into the Vessel of Hatred campaign as a level one Spiritborn character and see all the content it has to offer.

I’ve spent many hours with Vessels of Hatred now, devouring its side quests, hoovering up new loot, and really getting to know the Spiritborn class, and here are some of the best bits that I’ve experienced. 

 1. The pace and poison of the Spiritborn 

The main attraction of the DLC is arguably its new character class, the Spiritborn. This class and people are natives of the Jungles of Nahantu - more on that below - and almost trade in their human self for a spirit realm version based on animals of the jungle. 

The Spiritborn are built around agility, mobility, and speed. The Spiritborn’s deployment of long weapons like glaives or polearms as a direct extension of themselves makes for some acrobatic and athletic attack moves. All the movements and attacks are incredibly fast and brilliantly fluid. Other Diablo 4 classes and builds like my rogue can, of course, be quick as well, but there’s a satisfying fluidity I’m finding with the Spiritborn, darting from target to target, and executing multi-stab attacks, that’s a fantastic change of pace. 

The Spiritborn class channels four jungle ‘spirit guardian’ animals that its skills and abilities are based around: Gorilla, Eagle, Jaguar, and Centipede. Admittedly the latter doesn’t sound quite as exciting as the other three, but I’ve found that it is the source of my current favorite way to play.

The Centipede skills are based around poison damage, and its application in Vessel of Hatred is extremely fun - and effective. I have often found that poison damage can be a bit lackluster in games like Diablo or other action role-playing games (ARPGs). While it’s often ‘potent’ enough spec- or number-wise, it’s often pretty slow and doesn’t really deal damage effectively.

However, my Spiritborn can apply poison to enemies and see in real-time the effect it is having, depleting health bars pretty rapidly and satisfyingly. It can get a bit roguelike in the respect of ‘apply damage, dodge away, repeat’ but, complementing that, the Spiritborn can hold their own in battle through durability and life leech plus other robust attacks.

Some of my favorite skills so far are calling forth infectious swarms of bugs, an acrobatic ground pound with your glaive, throwing out eagle talons in a spiral to hit multiple enemies, and even bringing forth a centipede spirit to blast and spit at enemies.

There’s plenty of variety among the wider ‘animal-based’ skill sets and abilities that the Spiritborn has at their disposal too, but the poison damage is one that I’ve found a highlight of the class and expansion so far.

2.  The lushness of Nahantu 

The new area of Nahantu is a fine setting for the expansion - and a very welcome one. It’s a lush and verdant area that makes for a refreshing addition to the map with it’s jungle-aesthetic. Plants overgrow ruins and towns, waterways snake across the land, and stooping trees lean into camera shot and almost get in the way of the camera (they don’t really, but their scale and lushness provide an extra visual dimension).

Bolted onto the existing Sanctuary map, you can navigate to it as easily as any other part, but it still feels very separate from it - and fresh and new. The main Kurast area is a lush and verdant place making a nice change from the beiges, dusty reds, and barren wintriness of a lot of Sanctuary. Some of the overgrown ruins, and foliage-covered towns look like they were torn straight from an Indiana Jones movie, while the tropical forests with palm trees and huge-leaved shrubs that cover the wider landscape breathe life into the landscape.

And while the layout and overall map of the place will feel familiar and very Diablo 4-esque - with plenty of dungeons, strongholds, meandering routes, and isolated parts that require climbing or jumping to access, there’s a mystery here of the Spiritborn’s ancient civilization You’ll also find plenty of new towns.

Your adventure will also see you come across some pretty compelling new enemies, from snakes and spiders and other jungly-critters to warring tribes, and, of course, new demons and monsters. All in all, I’ve found Nahantu to be an excellent backdrop to this next installment, and one that I enjoy being in and fighting through.

3.  Mercenaries make great friends 

You’re not alone in your fight though, as Vessel of Hatred adds mercenaries as powerful allies that can join you almost wherever you go.

Picked up as part of quests, each is a unique character and offers their own means of supporting you - so they don’t just have one combat set to repeat over and over. Not only are they different fighting classes, but you can enhance their effectiveness by building your rapport and relationship with them by fighting alongside them. Skills become available and you can choose which they can use with each level of rapport. This is a fine enhancement of the concept and gives it a bit more depth and utility which I’ve found interesting enough to deploy.

These companions don’t say much at all while you’re out and about, which is a shame, so there’s no Dragon Age-party banter, but I've found that the fact they’re there at all and are genuinely useful in battle makes for a small and welcome boost to solo play. 

More is more

Throw in some additions to armor skins, as well as new pets, and a bunch of cosmetics (depending on which edition you have), along with the chunky length of the story campaign, a PvE co-op endgame, and the introduction of runes and runewords (items that can give you access to new skills or temporary buffs) and Vessel of Hatred is, at its heart, a great way to expand the Diablo 4 experience and introduce new features in the process. 

It’s a moreish mix of new combat and skills and game features, in a terrific setting and with a continuation of the quality narrative the base game had. I’m here for it, and it should firmly be on your radar this month when it releases on October 7 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET, or 12am BST on October 8 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC.

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A World of Warcraft edition of the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 wireless gaming headset has been announced, alongside a limited edition mouse, mousepad, and set of keycaps. All products in the collection will be available to purchase from September 24, 2024, from both SteelSeries and Blizzard's online stores.

The SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 World of Warcraft Edition bears all the same features of the original model including 360-degree spatial audio support, 35-40 hour battery life, and multiplatform support for PC, PlayStation consoles as well as Nintendo Switch.

The headset's aesthetic is certainly pretty eye-catching. It features a gold-hued headband and the iconic World of Warcraft 'W' on the ear cups. If you're interested, it'll run you $199.99 (likely around £194.99) which is $20 over the $179.99 retail price of the base model. As an added bonus, this World of Warcraft edition includes the Grinning Reaver mount for use in the game.

The collection also features a World of Warcraft edition of the SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wireless Gaming Mouse. This will be available for $159.99 (around £129.99) and comes packed with the Lil'Flameo in-game pet item. Want a mouse mat to go along with that? The collection features the QcK XXL mousepad. Measuring a giant 900mm x 400mm (and coming in at 2mm thick), it looks perfect for large desks, includes the Battle Turtle mount for use in-game, and comes in at $39.99 (around £29.99).

Interestingly, a limited edition keycap is also part of this collection. Inspired by World of Warcraft's Sword of Sargeras, SteelSeries notes that: "Each individual key cap has been resin-casted and hand-painted to depict the Sword which is a monument to the Burning Legion’s defeat that pierces the crust of Azeroth." They also mention that the keycap will be in very limited quantity, costing $79.99 (around $59.99).

Finally, SteelSeries booster packs for the Arctis Nova 7 have also made their way into the World of Warcraft collection. Alliance and Horde speaker plates and headband sets will be available, costing $39.99 (around £29.99) each. Both the booster packs and the limited edition keycap also come with the in-game Battle Turtle mount as an extra.

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While flying to SC23 (the 2023 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis) in Denver, Patrick Kennedy from Serve The Home had a chance encounter with a man on the plane who shared an intriguing story about Blizzard's decision to auction off its servers to fans.

World of Warcraft launched in November 2004 and was hugely popular - and even now boasts over a million daily logins. Each player's character is tied to a specific realm, requiring servers that track the state of all players and NPCs continuously.

In 2005, Blizzard deployed AMD Opteron 275 processors in HP ProLiant BL25p blades, offering significant performance improvements. These servers, essential for saving the state of every player, faced constant database writing.

A wedding present

After 6-7 years, the TCO payback for replacing over 10,000 blades was about 13 months. However, the removal of old blades was a key issue. Recycling companies often take ownership of decommissioned infrastructure, selling servers to generate revenue. Blizzard's HP server blades were so outdated that instead of recycling teams paying to take them, Blizzard faced potentially paying up to a million dollars for their removal.

In a bid to avoid these costs, the company decided to sell the hardware to WoW fans. Kennedy says “Instead of selling the servers directly, the blades were pulled from global data centers. A company then produced the placards with the instance name and a message. These were then auctioned off in a charity auction for St. Jude.”

This charitable auction provided Blizzard with a tax benefit and covering the project cost of removing the old blades.

It’s a fascinating story, and well worth a read. While it’s impossible to know where all the blades ended up, we know what happened to one. 

In a comment under the Serve the Home story, reader Tod Weitzel says, “In 2011 I had just gotten the save the date card (and invitation to be a groomsman) at the wedding of two best friends, who had met on World of Warcraft. Then I heard about the auction. After a lot of nerve wracking eBay refreshing, I won one of the two listed for our home server, Cenarion Circle. It cost more than I would have liked, but less than the limits of my goodwill towards the newlywed couple. When the blade arrived in the mail, I was delighted to see the WoW logo plexiglass cover that replaced the steel lid. It attached using embedded magnets, so I popped it off. I then spend the next six months shipping it around the country in a chain amongst every member of our guild, who signed it in silver ink. I have a picture of the happy couple seeing it for the first time at their wedding and all the in-attendance guild members surrounding it.”

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It’s easy to forget, when reflecting on World of Warcraft’s mark on the gaming industry and pop culture, just how different the game has felt over its various iterations. With its consistent bi-yearly expansions over two decades pushing it to stay relevant in a dramatically different gaming scene to the one it launched to 20 years ago, WoW has been defined and redefined by several different eras of gameplay. 

Whether it’s the ‘vanilla’ experience of pre-Cataclysm; the ‘new world’ experience of Cataclysm through to Legion, where Blizzard wrestled with updating WoW for a more modern audience; or the ‘borrowed power’ experience of Legion to Shadowlands, in which players needed to grind out content to stay relevant – each era had its highlights and pitfalls that have each sculpted and changed players’ perception of the WoW experience.

Within reach

Now, beginning with The War Within – WoW’s 10th expansion – Blizzard has for the first time tried to lay the groundwork for its next ‘era’ ahead of time, by announcing three expansions all at once in ‘The Worldsoul Saga.’ Blizzard has promised to iterate on WoW’s 20 year heritage, while building on the bold new development direction it undertook since Dragonflight launched two years ago. 

While the game itself is certainly still recognizable today as WoW, the efforts of the team over the last expansion cycle to rapidly release fresh content, and respond to player feedback at breakneck (by WoW standards) pace, has breathed new life into what many believed could well have been WoW’s swansong following Shadowlands.

With The War Within, Blizzard is trying to harness this new energy and signal to the gaming landscape that WoW is still as relevant today as it ever was. And more than anything, that WoW has the staying power to celebrate many more anniversaries to come. Whether the team will succeed remains to be seen, but to find out more about WoW’s more immediate future, I sat down with World of Warcraft assistant design director Maria Hamilton at a pre-alpha preview for The War Within. 

A new Warcraft saga

While Blizzard has long been clear that it plans WoW’s story at least two expansions in advance, this is the first time they’ve let players into that process by announcing a three-expansion saga. I was keen to find out more about that decision, and whether Hamilton felt it could potentially shackle the team to an idea, rather than being free to iterate on it away from prying player eyes and expectations. 

“When we looked at the story we wanted to tell, we realized it wasn’t a single expansion story, it was three. Rather than just leaving little snippets of future stories, we wanted to be able to build up to this amazing epic thing. It just made sense to us. But while we might know the start, the path in the middle and the end of the story, we might still want to change some of the other middle bits,” she explains.

“We have our story figured out, but there’s some leeway there. Right now we’re working on concept art for the third expansion The Last Titan, for example, trying to figure out how it will look. For the second expansion, Midnight, we’re currently working on world building and figuring out how to map different areas. There's a lot of time for us to make changes as we go, really up to when we voice record – that’s really the only point in which we’re locked in.”

As many players can attest, WoW has never been the quickest to implement new content, or adjust to player feedback, which in recent years has seen it unfavorably compared to its more contemporary rivals in the MMO space, such as Final Fantasy 14. The first step in creating a more modernized WoW experience, then, was working out how to rethink the update cycle.

“With Dragonflight we wanted to try and find the right cadence for how rapidly we could deploy content,” Hamilton explains. “There’s reasons why we can’t just rush things out: there’s localization and voice recording, and plenty of things that simply take a chunk of time that we can’t really adjust for. But we figured out that our ideal cadence for updates was around eight weeks, which was still far faster than we’ve ever managed before. A lot of us also felt like we really wanted to communicate with the community more, so that’s something we’ve tried to embed.

“The other core change was not focusing on systems that went away at the end of an expansion, but rather focusing on evergreen ones and areas we can overhaul.” These ‘evergreen’ systems include Dragonflight’s ‘dynamic flight’, which in The War Within is being expanded to all flying mounts that players have collected over the years, as well as ‘warbands’ which allow players to make account-wide progress on reputations and collect transmogs using any of their characters. 

There’s also been a deepening focus on Dragonflight’s redefined talent trees, and new to The War Within we will see ‘delves,’ a novel and fresh kind of content that showcases Blizzard’s desire to build new systems that will stand the test of time, while offering players a broader and more bespoke experience. Delves are 1-to-5 player, 10-15 minute mini dungeons with scaling difficulty, designed to cater to those players who dip into WoW for an hour or two, but who don’t want to commit to weekly raids or hardcore Mythic+ progression, and who aren’t interested in PvP.

Hamilton describes them as: “answering the issue of ‘hey, we have people that don’t have a lot of time to play, let’s give them something meaningful to do.’” She goes on to explain that while this is technically a The War Within box feature, it’s not purely a hook to sell the new expansion, but rather caters to their evolving playerbase. “They’re very much agnostic to the expansion, it was a problem we knew we wanted to solve. It didn’t actually matter what the expansion was, other than for how we were going to theme how we implemented them.” 

Expanding on Azeroth’s offering

Catering for so many different playstyles is a tricky balance, though. WoW has a solid community of raiders, Mythic+ dungeon runners and PvPers, not to mention the thousands who simply log in to do outdoor world content, farm mounts or level alts through old content. All these players want to feel accommodated and catered to, and I was keen to hear how Blizzard walked that tightrope, especially around the release of a new expansion. 

“Yeah, I mean we have always had to consider everyone’s needs with WoW, because the game has always catered to lots of different interests. For example, with the PvP contingent in the very early days - I’m talking Burning Crusade - we knew alongside the PvE content we wanted to introduce a capture the flag style gameplay mode that was unique for them.”

Hamilton says: “We’ve always tried to do things like that, but I think it has gotten easier over the years as we’ve gotten better at identifying who those people are, what that community is and how to better interact with them. So when we say ‘okay, we’re going to build a new PvP battleground’ we know how to reach them. The same can be said for Mythic+, or battle pets or anything else.”

The recent surprise addition of new battle royale-inspired game mode Plunderstorm, plus the announcement of WoW Remix, which will allow players to level confined to a specific past expansion (Mists of Pandaria is coming first, aptly named ‘Pandamonium’) with updated features and loot mechanics that evoke an experience more akin to a Diablo season than a WoW event, mean players will have more ways than ever before to experience Azeroth. And that’s not even mentioning WoW Classic Cataclysm and all of its intricacies. 

“Now we have the back-end tech built, we have the ability to build separate modes into the WoW menu, like we did for Plunderstorm and like we will with Remix. It gives us the opportunity to experiment a bit and get a sense of reception among players. That’s one of the biggest benefits of an online game in my opinion,” comments Hamilton. Events like these would’ve once been selling points of a new expansion, rather than mid-expansion cycle surprise announcements – perhaps indicative of Blizzard’s new ethos to WoW content.

Blizzard certainly have a tricky task ahead of them with The War Within, trying to convince players that they’ve learned from their past mistakes and that WoW’s development has turned a corner, with fast-paced response to player concerns and feedback, while at the same time attempting to demonstrate that WoW has a place in today’s gaming marketplace. Whether The War Within will herald the start of a new Warcraft generation that will last yet another 20 years, though, remains to be seen. 

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World of Warcraft franchise director John Hight says Blizzard Entertainment isn't using generative AI in the massively multiplayer online game (MMO).

During a recent interview with IGN at the Game Developers Conference 2024,  Hight explained that AI is the most exciting thing for the games industry right now, specifically machine learning, a tool that has been used by studios for years to make tasks easier for developers, not generative AI.

In the case of World of Warcraft, the team uses machine learning to help fit armor onto character models as opposed to developers doing it manually for each one, which can take more time. Hight said that the artists used to have to build armor for various body shapes, including horns, snouts, and tails, adding it was "just not particularly fun work for them."

"We have used machine learning to help do things that people either can't do or it's very cumbersome to do," Hight said. 

"...A few years ago, we said, 'Can we use machine learning to help at least get it to a point where 90% of the work is being done for them and then they can fine tune it?' And we went about that. It's actually worked out really well. It's allowed us to make a lot more different armor. The artists love it because it's like, 'Oh, thank God you got rid of the grungy part of what we're doing.'"

The franchise director continues, saying that NPC AI has also greatly improved and has supported the MMO's starting zone Exile’s Reach. He adds that the team is using the tool to now work on a new feature called Delves for the upcoming expansion The War Within, but clarifies that Blizzard isn't using generative AI in any way.

Hight says that he's the son of an aeronautical engineer and a fine artist so he has an appreciation for the creative process.

“I think the artists on the team have a fear that the AI will be deployed to take them out of a job and they certainly don't want their work to be used without their permission or without credit or whatever else, and so I think we're all sorting that out," he said.

"The rights issues, the how far do we use this technology, but we're not using it. We're not using generative AI within WoW."

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Overwatch 2 Season 9 has finally been released, and it looks like this season is going to be packed with tons of exciting features. 

This time around, the Battle Pass will be taking a leaf out of the proverbial book of cosmic terror with an Eldritch Horror theme for Season 9. We now know that Moira will be the recipient of the coveted mythic skin, which is given to just one hero per season. While we haven't seen much of her variant forms yet, the base mythic sure does look unsettling, with veins running through her suit. 

Other heroes who get new skins include Sigma, Sojourn, Mei, Widowmaker, Bastion, Torbojrn, and Winston. While not all of these adhere to the theme of Eldritch Horror, they still look fantastic. 

Following on from the eldritch horror theme, Season 9 also brings a new timed co-op event mode, Cosmic Crisis. The Antarctic map has been invaded by Aliens who have crash-landed on the Peninsula, with no one else left to protect the research station; you and your team will have to deal with them yourselves. 

Season 9 also brings about a competitive rework, something that players have arguably been waiting for since the launch of Overwatch 2. This rework will bring back transparency to leveling, with Blizzard removing the requirement to win five games or lose 15 before knowing your rank. 

Every single player will also get their rank reset to prevent stagnation. Many players, including myself, are still riding the high of being well-ranked for the first few seasons of Overwatch and may currently be in over their heads. This reset will level the playing field and hopefully create better distinctions between the ranks. There will also be regular smaller resets, which will hopefully help place people where they really ought to be.

Overall, Overwatch 2 Season 9 looks like a fantastic season full of brilliant content, intelligent changes, and exciting features. If you're looking for a fresh start in competitive or a reason to jump back into the first-person shooter, then this may be it. 

If you're looking for more games that scratch that shooter itch, then check out our lists of the best FPS games as well as the best multiplayer PC games. 

Following the news that Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 people from its video game workforce, there is further confirmation that a survival game that was in the works over at Blizzard Entertainment has now been canceled. 

“Today’s actions affect multiple teams within Blizzard, including development teams, shared service organizations, and corporate functions,” Matt Booty, head of Xbox Studios, said in a note to staff (verified by TechRadar Gaming). “As part of this focus, Blizzard is ending development on its survival game project and will be shifting some of the people working on it to one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development.” 

In a statement shared with TechRadar Gaming, a Microsoft spokesperson said: "We will share more about the status of upcoming games, services, and partnerships in the future."

The upcoming survival game was announced in 2022 and was set to be the first new game released by Blizzard since Overwatch back in 2016. In early 2022, Blizzard released a small snippet of the survival game on Twitter/ X, describing it as "an all-new universe."

"A place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived," a blog post described. "A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored."

"For thirty years, Blizzard has been creating universes for millions of players around the globe. This requires a diverse team of developers willing to lend their voices, to listen, and to be heard. That is our mission." 

The blog post also advertised various job positions on this now-canceled project; these included a lead artist and several design and programming jobs. It's a shame that what looked like an exciting new project will now likely never see the light of day. 

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The president of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra, has announced that he’s departing the company today (January 25). 

In a statement posted to Twitter / X, Ybarra said that his role leading the company and being part of its team had been “an absolute honor” and that “it’s time for me to (once again) become Blizzard’s biggest fan from the outside.” This announcement comes alongside the news that Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 members of staff from across the Xbox, Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax teams. 

Referring to the layoffs, Ybarra said: “I want to thank everyone who is impacted today for their meaningful contributions to their teams, to Blizzard, and to players’ lives. It’s an incredibly hard day and my energy and support will be focused on all those amazing individuals impacted – this is in no way a reflection on your amazing work. If there’s anything I can help with, connections, recommendations, etc., DM me.”

He also shared his thanks to “the incredible teams at Blizzard,” and noted: “Words can’t express how I feel about all of you. You are amazing. Continue to do incredible things and always keep Blizzard blue and the player at the forefront of every decision.”

Wrapping things up, he added: “To all of those impacted today - I am always available to you and understand how challenging today’s news is. My heart is with each one of you.”

It's worth noting that as per an internal memo written by Microsoft Studios Matt Booty (which TechRadar Gaming has confirmed to be authentic), it was stated that Ybarra decided to leave the company. Also leaving the company is Blizzard Entertainment co-founder and chief design officer Allen Adham.

According to Booty, the next Blizzard Entertainment president will be decided next week. 

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Recently, Blizzard has announced a few changes scheduled to take place in Overwatch 2’s Season 9, but there’s one potential feature that has support players up in arms. 

In a Director’s Take blog post, the Blizzard team outlined its development values and what it hopes to achieve in the coming seasons. Touching on how Overwatch 2 is predominantly a team-based competitive shooter, strengthened by recent additions like the ping feature, which can point out objects or players to your team, or the spawn together feature. More mechanics that aim to improve said teamwork have been discussed, like a team mini-map, backfill improvements, and Party Frames, which let the entire team see each other's health bars.  

While most of these ideas sound like solid ways to help teams in Overwatch 2 work more cohesively, there is one update that may take things too far. The Director’s Take also mentioned how, in Season 9, DPS and Tank heroes will be getting a “tuned-down version of the Support self-healing passive.” There’s no telling how much of an impact this upcoming mechanic will have on matches, but the hope is that it will alleviate support for players and give other heroes more opportunities to peel off from the team. As if health packs haven’t existed since the very beginning of the competitive first-person shooter’s release.  

Leave no hero behind 

As an Ana main, I find this shift to DPS and Tank self-heal slightly hypocritical as it’s come in the wake of some serious support nerfs, which has transformed the once-great sniper into a shadow of her former self. There have been some significant changes to Ana’s abilities, decreasing the time of the effect of her Biotic Grenade from 3.5 to 3 seconds, Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds, and the damage and healing per projectile reduced from 75 to 70. 

While I agree that support characters should dish out less damage, even if it makes them a better target for flanking DPS heroes, the Biotic Grenade and healing projectiles are integral to Ana’s kit and how she keeps her teammates alive. If Blizzard wants to improve the healing aspect in Overwatch 2, then playing with various ways to make it easier for support heroes to do their jobs would be helpful. Whether this be improving high-skill support heroes' healing capacity or mobility. Regardless, it should be higher on the list than simply giving Tank and DPS characters a passive heal ability. This change may be the easier way out, but it also erodes the team aspect of the team-based shooter. 

Overwatch 2, and its various classes and how they interact with one another, is a fantastic feature that demands relatively high levels of skill and a decent understanding of the first-person shooter. While this may not be easy for newcomers, it is what makes this shooter so interesting. 

Hopefully, the heal passive for DPS and Tank heroes won’t impact the role that supports play out too much; it’s tough out here as it is without Genji coming for our jobs. As it doesn’t seem like there will be a test period for this upcoming feature, it looks like we’ll have to wait and see what the outcomes will be with our fingers crossed in hopes it’s not too bad. 

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Blizzard is changing up Overwatch 2's casual fighting mode Quick Play for one weekend only, and it's sure to be something of a chaotic mess. 

Overwatch 2 has now fallen victim to the DPS hero Sombra and her lethal hacking skills. The former Talon member has now infiltrated the first-person shooter, changing up the rules for the title's casual fighting mode Quick Play in the process.

Quick Play: Hacked will be available for players to try out for only this weekend coming. It will encapsulate a new way to experience the classic mode with faster object capture speeds, payloads, and respawn times, according to a blog post from Blizzard. Who knows how this will impact the inherent tactics of Overwatch 2, but it will surely change the ways teams regroup and dive. 

The specific changes are as follows:

• Respawning times are now 75% of their original time.
• Payloads in Escort and Hybrid maps will move 60% faster.
• Taking control of the Objective Point in Hybrid is 40% faster than normal.
• Taking control of the objective point in Control is 40% faster than normal, and scoring the capture progress percentage is 80% faster.
• Taking control of the objective point in Flashpoint is 20% faster than normal, and scoring the capture progress percentage is 40% faster.
• When you play an Escort, Hybrid, or Push map, the initial match time has been reduced to 70% of the original time, and any time extensions are also reduced to 70% of the total time added.
• These changes only apply to all players who play in Role Queue and Open Queue Quick Play modes during the duration of the event and will return to normal after January 14. Competitive Play and Arcade modes are not affected by these changes.

If you're not a fan of these changes, then rest assured these aren't permanent. Quick Play will go back to normal after this weekend; think of this as a test run rather than the real deal. 

"We want to learn what changes to Overwatch 2 you enjoy the most," said Blizzard in the blog post above. "Testing new ideas with you for a limited time allows us to quickly understand what you like and possibly implement changes to improve gameplay. This also gives players of all skill levels an opportunity to try out new playstyles and strategies that wouldn’t necessarily work as well in a traditional game of Overwatch."

So, who knows if or when we'll ever see these changes back in Overwatch 2? But for the time being, just make sure to hang tight with your team and always be aware of where the enemy spawn is; they'll be behind you before you know it in a mode where speed is everything. 

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Diablo 4's hardest endgame dungeon has finally opened to any brave players as part of the seasonal event: the Abattoir of Zir. For many, this dungeon release has been a long time coming and a lot of preparation has been going into ensuring teams have what it takes to face off with the game's hardest challenge. But, unfortunately, the launch hasn't been smooth sailing, and regardless of how much people have prepared - it's simply not enough.

Alongside the release of the update to bring this challenge to life, a bug has slipped through the cracks that's reducing the power of players by dropping their Glyph radius by one level. Your Glyph provides powerful bonuses depending on where you place it and which of its nodes you unlock in its radius. The larger the radius, the more powerful you become, making it a pretty essential tool for endgame content. 

For players who aren't quite there, you start to delve into the world of Glyphs once you've hit level 50 and started gaining Paragon Points instead of skill points. These can be used to increase the radius of your Glyph and increase its level, which is what most players have been doing to prepare for the dungeon since it increases your power. But, this radius is what's been targeted by the bug, and it feels like a huge step back for players who have put time into improving it before facing the dungeon.

Due to the dungeon's extreme difficulty, any lack of power is less than ideal, but this bug almost renders the challenge impossible for many. For players who have maxed out the level of their Glyph to 21, it won't feel like such a hefty blow. But for those who are stuck at 15 and still working away at increasing its power, you may have to wait until the bug is patched before giving this dungeon your all. 

We've got a list of all the best multiplayer PC games if you're looking for a way to pass the time while you wait for this bug to be patched. We've also pulled together all the best co-op games for any players looking for another adventure. 

A free trial of Diablo IV is now available on Steam until November 28, which is ideal for any players who have been curious to jump into the MMORPG without committing their time to the game. Opening the doors to the realm of Sanctuary, you'll be free to explore and play as you would upon purchase, but as is the way with trials - there is one caveat. 

Rather than limiting you to a set of missions or limiting which areas you can explore, the trial period caps your character at level 20, which isn't a huge milestone and won't take too long if you're committed to the game. With that said, there's still ample opportunity to explore and see what the world has to offer, which may sway your decision to fully commit to the Diablo IV grind. 

However, to coincide with the free trial, Blizzard is hosting a "Mother's Blessing Week" within Diablo IV, offering players a 35% XP and gold bonus. This event is slated to run until the day before the trial ends, November 27, and applies to those playing the trial version, too. So, although this is a great way to make your way through the game quickly, it also means you'll reach your level cap much faster. 

Fortunately, you can use the trial to create a variety of characters to the cap at level 20 if you want to make the most of it. With the XP bonus event active, and obviously, depending on what you're doing within the game, hitting these caps won't take you more than a few hours.

So, even though you might not be able to sink as much time into the trial of Diablo IV as you'd hope, it's still a great way to sample each class Diablo IV has to offer and see what you gel with. You never know; maybe you'll find something that twists your arm into devoting yourself to Sanctuary. 

We've got all the best Black Friday gaming deals if you're ready to commit to Diablo IV and looking to save a few bucks on a copy. We've also got all the Black Friday gaming headset deals and Black Friday gaming chair deals if you're looking to complete your whole setup too. 

As part of Diablo 4’s Campfire Chat, Unique item drops have been addressed after the general consensus suggested that they just weren’t exciting enough. As stated in the presentation video, “too often players don’t feel good when they drop, even for builds they are intended for.” 

So, in direct response to these comments and concerns, the development team has gone through the available Uniques and updated almost every single one to make them feel more rewarding rather than disappointing. 

To combat these changes a four-fold strategy has been applied to the fixes. This strategy includes new stats added to the vast majority of Uniques, such as increased duration, alongside larger existing stat ranges, followed by overriding slot rules and updating Unique effects. The full Campfire Chat which provides examples of how exactly these Unique updates will be implemented can be seen below:

The team was also quick to share how important feedback is from players and transparency on how and why these changes are being made, stating “Something that is really important to me and the team is that when we're talking to you about the updates we're doing to the game, that you understand why we're making these changes and what our goals are because you're going to see as we go through all these, we're changing a lot of all the underlying math and other systems of the game work. And the odds are high that we don't nail everything perfectly.

"But if you understand what we're trying to do, and we're more transparent about that, then when you're having discussions with each other and when you're giving feedback to us, they can just be a little bit more high level and better sources of information when you also understand why we're doing things."

We’ve got all the best Black Friday gaming deals if you’re looking to make a saving on some of this year's best games and accessories.  

Blizzard Entertainment’s official gaming convention, BlizzCon, took place over the weekend (between November 3 and 5). Since the event, numerous fans who attended have taken to social media to complain about the enormous queues and what’s they describe as “poor management”. 

BlizzCon 2023 was the first in-person BlizzCon to run since 2019, and general admission tickets cost fans $299 - up from the $229 ticket price back in 2019. Additionally, ‘Portal Pass’ tickets were sold for $799 (up from $550 in 2019) which offered attendees access to an exclusive lounge (promising private concessions, gaming experiences, employee meet and greets and more), as well as a separate security and registration line and early entry to the lounge on Friday and Saturday. 

On Reddit, one attendee called the event a “total disaster”, noting that they’ve attended every year that it’s been running, but this year was “total garbage” with “nothing to do”. They wrote: “I'm very disappointed. Always brought my kids. Never again - I'm out.”

Meanwhile, many have been complaining about the massive lines to get into the convention center - TRG staff at the event also observed long queues. Another Reddit user described the experience as an “absolute nightmare”, and alleged that “the line was blocks down [the] harbor and into residential areas (folks were even coming out of their home to take photos), and unlike previous years, they didn't close down adjacent streets for safety and proper line management. 

“This poor management led to thousands of folks missing the opening ceremony and it was so clear that the outsourced production parties/security had no idea how to handle this.”

Another user also claimed that they had to queue “all the way into a neighborhood”, and added: “Compared to our line experience last BlizzCon, this one was an absolute hellscape of a time to get in LMAO. No other words describe it.”

Those who did attend BlizzCon 2023 were able to watch K-pop group Le Sserafilm perform live, following the group’s recent collaboration with Overwatch 2. In an interview with TechRadar Gaming, Overwatch 2's executive producer Jared Neuss described collabs like this as a “love letter from the team” to passionate players. 

For more games like Overwatch 2, be sure to check out our lists of the best FPS games, as well as the best multiplayer PC games.

World of Warcraft's newest expansion, The War Within, has been announced during Blizzcon 2023's opening ceremony.

The War Within kicks off the multi-part Worldsong Saga, a trilogy of expansions that Blizzard claims will celebrate World of Warcraft's 20th anniversary, which is in 2024. The War Within will be launching next year during those anniversary celebrations and will be the game's tenth expansion.

The War Within will take players into subterranean kingdoms beneath Azeroth itself, coming face to face with the Earthen Dwarves and the Nerubians of Azl-Kahet.

There will be new areas for players to explore too, including Azl-Kahet - that's where those Nerubians will be, I assume - and other places like the Isle of Dorn, The Ringing Deeps, and Hallowfall. 

There's a trailer. There's a giant sword in it. 

There are a few new features to it too. The Earthern Dwarves are an all-new playable allied race, the level-cap is being expanded to 80 and heroes will be able to earn new skills with Hero Talent trees, there's also dynamic flying, which we didn't get to see any of but sounds much more exciting than undynamic flying. 

One of the more exciting things in the brief mention we received of it is the idea of Warbands, which will share your bank and other bonuses with all of your characters, good for people who like to roll up a lot of alts.

 You can pre-order World of Warcraft The War Within now, and there's a beta test coming up at some stage too. If you want more Blizzcon news, mobile game Warcraft Rumble was released at the show, there's a new Overwatch 2 hero you can play this weekend and much more. 

Looking for a bargain this Black Friday? Get in prime position for the sales with our advice and early picks of the best early Black Friday gaming deals. Plus you might enjoy gaming for cheap with some of the best Black Friday video game deals going right now too. 

Mobile-based strategy game Warcraft Rumble has been released at Blizzcon 2023. You can play it right now as the game is downloadable on both the Google Play store and iOS.

Warcraft Rumble was officially announced in 2022, titled Warcraft Arclight Rumble. In this strategy game players can collect minis before pitting them against popular figures, both heroic and villainous, from across the Warcraft Franchise. The launch version of the game has 60 minis already, spread across the families of Alliance, Horde, Beast, Undead, and Blackrock. 

To celebrate the launch, there's a new mini arriving in Warcraft Rumble: Sylvanus Windrunner, one of Warcraft's most iconic characters. Players can also unlock new skills and spells as they fight. 

Taking a look, Warcraft Rumble is free-to-play with in-app purchases and will take a little over 200 MB on your device. 

This certainly wasn't on my radar before, but as someone who's been spending a lot of his time traveling and digging into Marvel Snap - a game directed by ex-Hearthstone director Ben Brode - this has made me interested in playing a few more mobile games. Will Warcraft Rumble fit the bill? Let's find out. 

Elsewhere during the Blizzcon 2023 opening ceremony, Overwatch 2 got the announcement of a new hero Mauga. Diablo 4 is getting a new class too: we don't know what it is yet, but the expansion Vessel of Hatred that's coming in late 2024 will be adding a new class that's never been seen before in the Diablo franchise. 

For more fun on your phone check out these great iPhone games and the best Android games. If you're looking to save money on some mobile gaming accessories this winter too, then get ready for the upcoming Black Friday gaming deals and Black Friday gaming headset deals but also the Black Friday PS5 controller deals and Black Friday Xbox controller deals if you need a new pad to team with your mobile games.

At Blizzcon 2023, Diablo 4 production directors Tiffany Wat and Chris Wilson announced Diablo 4's first full expansion, Vessel of Hatred, which will focus on the prime evil Mephisto, and his influence on the world of Sanctuary. 

While it was very much a "one last thing" announcement without gameplay, Wat and Wilson said that the new expansion would be adding a class never seen before into Diablo 4 and would be adding a new area to the Sanctuary that's already available in Diablo 4. 

In our five-star Diablo 4 review, Cat Bussell explained that the game was "a meticulously crafted action RPG and sets a new standard for isometric, open-world adventures." While the game's first season of content had many detractors, season 2 appears to be much better received at the moment. 

You can check out the full Vessel of Hared expansion announcement trailer below. It's complete with a panning shot through the forest and finishes with a lingering look at a series of pyramids or forts protruding from the canopy while a grim-sounding voiceover sets the scene. The trailer reveals that the expansion will be released in 'late 2024'.

We'll come back to this story if we get more to it, but the idea of a new hero is personally exciting for me, a long-term Diablo fan. Given the choice, I'd love to see a hero that can wear actual armor: I love my angry angry barbarian, but I wish I could put someone in some plate mail sometimes, you know? 

That's not the only Blizzard game at Blizzcon 2023 to have a new character teased. Overwatch 2 fans got the first look at the new hero Mauga, and there are new expansions for Hearthstone and World of Warcraft planned, too. 

Looking for more games like Diablo 4? Check out our lists of the best RPGs. And remember, if you're in the market for gearing up this year, the Black Friday gaming deals and Black Friday gaming headset deals are right around the corner.

It’s been a tough year for fans of Blizzard’s beleaguered hero shooter, Overwatch 2. Released last October as a full-scale replacement for the original Overwatch, many fans have been frustrated by the game’s costly microtransactions (which, at this point, honestly seem more like “macrotransactions”).

Now, Blizzard has hiked up the price of their Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle just in time for the arrival of two desirable Diablo crossover skins, leaving the community up in arms.

For those unfamiliar, the Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle was a $29.99 add-on for Overwatch 2 that granted access to the current season’s Battle Pass, 20 Battle Pass tier skips, 2,000 Overwatch Coins, and a handful of exclusive skins.

However, this changed with the arrival of Season 6, which saw its price increase to $39.99 alongside the addition of the short Invasion PVE story campaign to the package. This $39.99 price tag has now persisted into the current Season 7, which, importantly, does not contain any new PVE content.

Buying this $39.99 bundle is also the only way to obtain two of the season’s most anticipated skins, Lilith Moira and Inarius Pharah - based on popular characters from Diablo 4.

Many players have taken to social media to express their disappointment at the move.

Reddit user kid-karma urges fans to "remember how little they think of you when these are the prices they think you'll pay". 

"They will keep charging more and more for less and less until people stop giving them money", adds rock_flag_n_eagle.

There has been a similar reaction over on Twitter, with user @murlocprincess impressed by the new crossover skins but lamenting that "at this point, I know that the ones I want will be paywalled".

If you want something else to play, check out our list of the best FPS games or the best free games.

Blizzard has revealed that Diablo 4 will be getting annual expansions alongside the seasonal content and updates.

In an interview with Dexerto, general manager of Diablo 4, Rod Fergusson, stated the development team views the game's future by looking at "our quarterly seasons, and...our annual expansions".

Naturally, Diablo 4 having long-running plans isn't a total surprise, but the regularity of the incoming content for the game is nice to have confirmed. Fergusson confirmed more details and snippets of information in the interview, stating that there are "years and years" of plans for Diablo 4 while also revealing that "we have storylines that go well into the future".

The inspiration, perhaps, for this commitment to regular, sizeable support to the game and its community has seemingly come from the time Diablo 4 took to come out after its predecessor: "When you look back and realize that there were 11 years between D3 and D4, that feels like we didn’t live up to our players, our community, and what they deserve. That’s something we are rectifying in D4 with our seasons and our expansions.” Fergusson explains.

Diablo 4's Season of Blood is the game's second season and was announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023 last month. Heavily vampire-themed, this season will feature new vampiric powers, a new vampire hunter character, a new questline, and five new end-game bosses. It starts on October 17 and looks to keep players busy for the rest of the year and into 2024.

If Blizzard achieves its goal to provide one larger annual expansion plus four seasonal content updates per year, then Diablo 4 players should be well-fed and have plenty to get stuck into in the months and years ahead.

If you're looking for tips on the games then check out our Diablo 4 best classes article, as well as our explainer on the Diablo 4 transmog system. And, if you're looking for more games like Diablo 4, our best RPGs list will have you covered.

Activision Blizzard has announced Diablo 4 Season of Blood, the next season of new content for the popular dungeon-crawling RPG, and it launches on October 17, 2023. 

Diablo 4 is currently midway through Season 1, Season of the Malignant, but that hasn't stopped the development team from teasing what's next for the Xbox Series X, PS5, and PC title. Revealed during Gamescom with a dedicated trailer, the next core content update takes a much darker tone than the already dreary title to date, as vampires come to Sanctuary. Fresh blood for one of the best RPGs around. 

In terms of what you can expect from the next season, the trailer itself promises a new questline, new vampiric powers, and five new end-game bosses. There's also a new character in the shape of a vampire hunter, Erys, voiced by Gemma Chan, most known for her role in Crazy Rich Asians. 

The darker tone has been fleshed out in a recent blog post: "At the behest of their dark master, a newly turned army of ravenous vampires has set their sights on Sanctuary. The master’s sinister plot remains a shrouded mystery but their pursuit for the blood of innocents has caused an uproar. You must learn to hunt the hunter—your fate depends on it". 

In terms of the vampiric abilities, the trailer makes it clear that these new powers are incredibly aggressive as you'll be able to zip across the map at breakneck speeds. It's likely the most devastating of these moves will be tied to deep cooldowns, but it's exciting to see just much you'll be able to mix and match per class with them. 

There are also quality-of-life improvements to look forward to as well with Season 2, including the fact that gems will no longer take up precious inventory space, stashes can be searched and filtered, and there will be updates to both elemental resistance systems and damage updates. Much like with Season 1, we're also expecting new unique items Legendary Aspects to drop, as well as new additions to the ongoing battle pass. 

Diablo 4 will play best on consoles with one of the best Xbox controllers or one of the best PS5 controllers. What's more, it'll look particularly good on one of the best monitors for Xbox Series X or one of the best monitors for PS5. 

I'm in the attacking team's waiting room at Esperança. I'm playing support, Kiriko to be precise, and I take position behind our tank Reinhardt. The pre-match countdown ends and we charge out the door, ready to push the payload. It's a chaotic start but we win the opening fracas and begin our procession to the checkpoint, until a Widowmaker kills me, dampening my vibe faster than heavy rain during British Summer. I respawn but notice something is wrong: I can't move. All of a sudden, Overwatch 2 on Steam Deck doesn't seem such a cool idea.

Overwatch 2's recent arrival on Steam has been mixed at best. In fact, the official game page would have you believe it's been 'overwhelmingly negative', with some of the most rampant review bombing since The Last of Us Part 2's Abby took her new golf club for a spin. 

However, we're not here to ruminate on the reasons behind this, although if we were then we'd likely focus on the cancellation of the PvE mode as it was initially pitched when Overwatch 2 was announced back in 2019. Instead, my task was to play the game on Steam Deck to find out how it runs. The short answer: it's not good. 

Losing control 

Now it would be remiss of me not to point out that Blizzard hasn't marked the game as 'verified' or even 'playable', with the former meaning it works as it should, while the latter suggests it’s likely to have mild drawbacks. In other words, I went into the game expecting a less than ideal setup, and that's what I got.

During every PvP game I played, the controls cut out. At first this was usually after dying, but before long I would lose control from the moment the character selection screen appeared at the very start of a match. I could still use the touchscreen, and I was able to return to the Steam menu using the specific home button, but everything else essentially disconnected. Sometimes, if I was lucky, the controls would reactivate for a minute or so, but most of the time, I would watch on powerlessly as the game's warning message displayed, telling me I was about to be kicked for inactivity.

Weirdly, training mode was unaffected by this glitch, if you can call it that. No matter how long I spent testing out characters this way, no control problems arose, but the moment I went back to online play, I was left with the guilt of letting my teammates down as my hero stood there like a broken NPC. This major issue is clearly the biggest, and potentially only, reason Overwatch 2 can't be verified on Steam Deck, because in every other way, the game is functional.

Where it does work 

Graphically it's fine on a tiny screen, running at 1280x800, 60 FPS. Of course it doesn't hold a candle to max PC settings or current-gen console versions of the game, but the handheld convenience will always make this element easy to overlook.

The controls are smooth enough, too, at least if you're used to playing with a gamepad. The joysticks feel a bit clunky compared to their sleeker, Xbox counterparts, but it won't take long to adjust. 

When playing without a headset, the Steam Deck's speakers are sufficiently adequate for relaying the sounds of enemy footsteps. Overwatch 2 is a game that benefits from voice chat, but you won't miss any in-game barks or prompts playing this way. 

As for battery life, on a full charge the Steam Deck claims to have just shy of two hours worth of energy with the game running. Naturally, I didn't finish many matches, so I can't say I properly tested this, but in training mode I found the battery level depleted commensurate with its estimation. 

The bottom line 

Ultimately, all else is irrelevant when the game runs so inconsistently due to its control issues. In an online PvP title, smooth continuity is vital to a positive experience. Until Blizzard finds a way to eliminate this huge flaw - not that we've any reason to believe they will - Overwatch 2 on Steam Deck is unplayable. 

We'd consider Overwatch 2 to be one of the best FPS games, despite its performance on Steam Deck. But if you're looking for an alternative multiplayer adventure, our list of the best co-op games is worth checking out. 

It’s frustrating to be told “no”. Whether or not you’re applying for a job, trying to get gig tickets for a band you love, or trying to build a super-powered ultra-wizard in roleplaying game (RPG) Diablo 4, life’s limitations can be grating and difficult to manage. 

However, sometimes restrictions are actually a blessing in disguise. This is true of Diablo 4, which (in)famously restricts players to a limited action bar of six abilities. Though it’s disappointing not to be able to use every face-meltingly powerful spell or terrifying martial technique at your disposal simultaneously, there is a good reason behind these limitations.

By forcing you to keep to only six attacks, Diablo 4 asks you to make some difficult choices. What do you cut? Do you focus on defensive moves to increase longevity? Maybe you go for some buffs to help your allies, or do you decide to be more self-serving? These kinds of choices are what separate the best RPGs from the rest, forcing you to craft your own bespoke approach to the game’s challenges. 

While there might be a passing joy in being able to spam all of the Sorcerer spells at once, in practice every character would swiftly lose their identity, damaging the quality of the experience in the long run. Restrictions force players to be selective and methodical in their approach to character building beyond just selecting one of Diablo 4’s classes. This is the real beauty of the system. 

The old way

This technique is hardly new and has been a staple of RPGs since the earliest days of the genre. 

The Pokémon games are a masterclass in this “less is more” mentality. Famously, Pokémon can only know four moves at a time, ensuring that leveling up becomes a challenge in and of itself, forcing players to consider how exactly they want their pocket monster of choice to perform in battle. For young and bloodthirsty trainers like my tween self, offensive moves were the order of the day. If the attack didn’t have “hyper” or “mega” in the title, I didn’t want to hear it. 

Now, as a more seasoned Pokémon fan, I find myself thinking a little harder about where to commit those four slots. In my playthrough of Pokémon Scarlet, I took time to consider which moves were worth keeping, luxuriating in the decision trees that the game presented. Is a versatile Dragonite with lots of different attack types better than a specialized powerhouse?  

Should my Gogoat be able to paralyze targets or beat them to a pulp with raw damage? How did these decisions affect team composition? 

You’ll notice that these questions are similar to those hypotheticals posed above when discussing Diablo 4. This is no coincidence. All of these questions made for gripping moments of player choice. Regardless of your opinion on the best Pokémon game, every entry in the series has been elevated by this mechanic, going back as far as the originals. 

Massively multiplayer RPG (MMORPG) Guild Wars 2 makes ample use of a limited action bar too, forcing players to make meaningful choices within their class. In the context of an MMO, these limitations help Guild Wars 2 blur the traditional tank-damage-healer trifecta, an approach that upcoming Japanese MMO Blue Protocol has also taken.  

Choices, choices

It’s in this tradition that Blizzard opted to limit the attacks available to players in Diablo 4. 

Ultimately, every choice in the gothic action RPG closes as many doors as it opens. Selecting one node on the skill tree is to choose it over all of the competition. To imbue an item with an Affix is to reject alternatives, and to choose a specific Paragon Board is to prize its mechanical benefits over the others. For every skill your character slots into their build, part of the possibility space is cut away, which feels like it should be a negative, but actually succeeds in making your character feel more unique.

To make a meaningful choice in a video game, we must always give something up. Though this can be painful, it is also vital to giving player actions a sense of weight, consequence, and meaningfulness. Each decision goes on to add weight to the next, by helping you establish the sorts of choices that work for you and the ones that don’t. 

While the Diablo 4 metagame certainly prescribes certain “optimal” builds over others, the decisions required to craft those builds in the first place wouldn’t exist without Blizzard’s restrictive approach to leveling and character progression. Even the very strongest builds are themselves, discovered through player action and player choice. It’s this expansive, cascading nature of Diablo 4’s decision points that led us to give the game a five-star review in the first place. 

Diablo 4 is unlikely to ever have this problem, thanks, in part, to its emphasis on meaningful limitations. Sure, you can only pick six attacks, but they’re *your* choices, produced by your own thoughts and instincts. This ensures that your Diablo 4 character is your own, a product of your own agency, and nothing can take that away from you.  

Looking for more multiplayer action? Our list of the best co-op games has you covered. Alternatively, of you want to find out more about the roots of deliberately restrictive game design, check out our list of the best JRPGs.

In a recent live stream, Blizzard developers acknowledged that Diablo 4's latest update disappointed fans, claiming they don't "plan on doing a patch like this ever again."

In a fireside chat, Diablo 4's senior developers took an apologetic tone in light of a glut of negative feedback from fans in the wake of the game's latest update: the Season of the Malignant. Though we at TRG were unimpressed with the nerfs to the sorcerer class, fan indignation went further, responding to the update's across-the-board nerfs aimed at preventing players from "blasting through content." 

The trio of senior developers took the time to "acknowledge everyone's feedback... We know it's bad. We know it is not fun." 

The Campfire Chat was a surprisingly candid affair, with the developers taking the time to "talk about what we were trying to achieve specifically with this patch and with the changes that players ended up seeing." Crucially, however, the team was keen to stress "how we don't plan on doing a patch like that ever again." 

Adam Fletcher, associate director of community management for Diablo 4, elaborated on this point, stressing that "we've heard the feedback on that front." He also went on to discuss "how we can talk better and communicate with the community better."  

What this amounted to was a long, but fascinating discussion about the game's design philosophy from three highly experienced game developers. You can see the full live stream below. 

Perhaps the most significant takeaway was the team's commitment to ensure that "when making changes to increase build diversity, [we would] let some builds be overpowered until we have provided compelling alternatives." 

This approach stands in stark contrast to previous operating procedures, where Diablo 4 classes have often found their best endgame builds pared down with little to replace them. This is certainly true of the Sorcerer, which relied on skills that were heavily nerfed in the recent patch to make up for its relative lack of survivability. 

While many would rather that Blizzard never made these missteps in the first place, the Diablo 4's team's honest acknowledgment of player concerns is one of the better outcomes of the patch's controversy. The Campfire Chat could set a precedent for openness and transparency that bodes well for Diablo 4's future.  

If you're looking for a break from Diablo 4 while Blizzard makes these changes, check out our lists of the best RPGs and best co-op games. 

The Sorcerer, arguably Diablo 4's weakest class, has received a significant nerf courtesy of Blizzard's latest patch for the game.  

Diablo 4's patch 1.10a has launched in preparation for the game's upcoming Season of the Malignant. However, it looks like Sorcerers have to deal with a malignancy of their own, now that one of their staple abilities has been nerfed. 

Devouring Blaze was a cornerstone of many powerful late-game and endgame builds, allowing Sorcerers to deal additional critical strike damage against burning and immobilized enemies. Making enemies more vulnerable to critical strikes in this fashion is crucial to a wide range of endgame builds, even builds where you primarily use cold spells (via PCGamer).

According to the patch notes, Devouring Blaze's bonus critical strike damage has been "reduced from 10/20/30% to 7/14/21%", while the bonus critical strike damage to immobilized targets has been "reduced from 25/50/75% to 10/20/30%."

Diablo 4's Sorcerer may rank highly in our best classes list, but only because its impressive damage output made up for the magic user's fragility. It would appear that this nerf has made Diablo 4's resident glass cannon all the more brittle.

This nerf compounds nastily with Blizzard's nerf to defensive Affixes. Being the squishiest of Diablo 4's classes, Sorcerer builds often rely on defensive items to help improve their survivability, since they lack access to the protective abilities and self-healing often used by other classes. 

Citing concerns that "skillful players are frequently slaughtering monsters many levels above their own", Blizzard has opted to begin "shifting power to many offensive Affixes from defensive Affixes." Though the developer acknowledged that this will "make our end game content more deadly", it's fair to say that Sorcerers are disproportionately affected by this balance change.  

Sorcerors have often been on the receiving end of Blizzard's nerfs, having their skills toned down in almost every patch. Though Sorcerors have received some minor buffs along the way, too, these have never been sweeping enough to make up for the nerfs. However you slice it, Sorcerer players are stuck with the short end of the stick, at least for now. 

Diablo 4 ranks among one of the best RPGs of recent years, but we at TRG also rate the game's slick multiplayer, rating it among the best co-op games out there. If you're a sorcerer main, you'll likely need a buddy or two, anyway.

Diablo 4's latest patch has put players back to square one in their search for a secret cow level. 

Though both Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 contained parody levels full of bovines, players have yet to discover whether or not such a level exists in Diablo 4. Clashing with the game's unremittingly bleak art style, a cow level would be a real treat for longtime fans, and a wry reference from Blizzard. 

Despite the insistence of Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson that no such level exists, fans have not been deterred, souring the game for references to all things cow in an attempt to locate their cow-ly grail (via PCgamer).

Patch 1.0.3, which released this week, removed code for a quest that referenced a ritual involving "The Oxen Gods". Those hunting the cow level were adamant that this quest might be the way to find the secret level. According to the D4 - Not Finding a Cow Level Discord community, the ritual involved gathering some unique items to perform a ritual in Ked Bardu, which, in turn, would grant you a key to a hidden cellar wherein you'd find the cow level.  

Naturally, the removal of this ritual comes as a disappointing change to the Discord community. One of its leaders, a Discord user calling themselves Chef, conceded that "it is entirely possible that we have gotten nowhere in almost a month considering we are essentially restarting the search." 

That said, Chef and their community remain undeterred, also stating that "The goal from here on out is to re-evaluate the secrets given to us, and use our breadth of knowledge of Diablo 4 to really dig into the nitty-gritty of the lore and lore-based puzzles." 

Though Diablo 4's much-rumored cow level could well be something of a mirage, the tenacity of this lore-hungry community is inspiring and a real testament to the passion of the fanbase. 

If you want to get your hands on something that's definitely real, Prime Day is on the horizon, offering a host of gaming deals across the board.

A number of Blizzard games including Diablo IV were inaccessible over the weekend following a DDoS attack that left some users without access.

Following a number of Reddit comments concerning downtime, the company took to Twitter to announce that it was investigating an issue affecting its authentication servers, which it said “may result in failed or slow login attempts.” One user commented on the thread that the issue started around midnight Eastern US time.

Several hours later, Blizzard confirmed that the outage was indeed due to a DDoS attack, adding “We continue to actively monitor an ongoing DDOS attack which is affecting latency/connections to our games.”

Blizzard outage

According to comments in the company’s first Tweet about the issue, affected users were receiving a variety of unexplained error codes. At the time, Blizzard said: “Players may experience queues while we work on the issue.”

Fortunately, Blizzard’s customer support channel confirmed that the attacks had ended on the same day that it had first notified users, but by then, many players’ Sundays were drawing to a close.

Currently, it’s unclear which threat actor may be behind the DDoS attack that flooded Blizzard’s servers with high volumes of Internet traffic. The company did not immediately respond to TechRadar Pro’s request for an update on the DDoS attack, but from what we can tell, servers and games are back to normal.

Although the attacks have ended, Blizzard has indirectly suggested that some users may still be affected, directing users who cannot log in to follow basic troubleshooting steps.

Blizzard’s Battle.net platform is, as players will know, a frequent victim of DDoS attacks for reasons often unknown, but the company is typically fast to react as it looks to keep gamers online.

• Boost your security with the best firewalls and best endpoint protection software

Overwatch 2 is getting a brand new update this August, as revealed in a fresh new trailer. As part of the E3 2023 cavalcade of announcements, Overwatch 2: Invasion promises to add numerous "new ways to play" to the Overwatch formula. 

This includes much-coveted story missions as well as new co-op events, a firing range, hero mastery challenges, and a brand new "flashpoint" game mode. 

Fans expressed their disappointment surrounding Blizzard's decision to walk back their plans for single-player content. However, with any luck this patch will go some way to mending hurt feelings and to giving Overwatch 2's characters the narrative treatment they deserve. 

The title has been in dire need of single-player story content for a while now. It was originally promised as part of the move from the original Overwatch to its sequel. However, Blizzard pushed back the addition of a narrative mode, delaying its release. 

Overwatch 2 has a great cast of characters. From stoic healer Mercy to freedom-fighting automaton Ramattra, the diverse ensemble of Blizzard's arena shooter has long cried out for a full-on story mission treatment.

Though it might seem like a minor detail, the addition of Hero Mastery missions looks to add a gentle on-ramp for Overwatch 2, helping new players to wrap their heads around the more complicated aspects of the game's frenetic PvP. Overwatch 2 has a relatively sparse tutorial, sometimes leaving new players in the dark. With any luck, Hero Mastery may go a long way toward solving this problem. 

The new Flashpoint game mode also looks poised to shake up the Overwatch 2 scene in a big way. Though we don't yet know the specifics, since Overwatch 2 is, at its heart, a PvP game the addition of a new mode is likely to add a breath of fresh air to the meta.  

Overwatch 2: Invasion is coming out August 10 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. 

Diablo 4 Keeping the Old Traditions is a quest that has vexed more than a fair share of players. Rather than asking you to slaughter your enemies in typical Diablo tradition, Keeping the Old Traditions asks you to solve a riddle. 

Diablo 4 offers an immersive and realized world, full of monsters to slay, loot to collect, and intriguing nuggets of lore – all of which are set against a gorgeous, yet eerie gothic backdrop. It can be frustrating to have your journey through sanctuary rudely interrupted by a puzzle, especially if riddle-solving isn't your jam. 

As rewarding as puzzles can be, sometimes you just want to get back to enjoying the meticulously designed looting and killing that makes Diablo 4 so fun. Fortunately for you, we've broken down every step of Keeping the Old Traditions, ensuring that you'll be able to tick off this particular quest in no time at all. 

Diablo 4 Keeping the Old Traditions location

You can find Keeping the Old Traditions in the Dry Steppes near the centre of the Untamed Scarps. You can reach the quest area by fast travelling to Jirandai and then heading North-East or by heading due West from the Ruins of Qara-Yisu in the neighbouring region. 

Once you reach the location, you'll see a book near a rocky outcrop. Select the book to start the quest.

Diablo 4 Keeping the Old Traditions riddle solution

Rather than task you with killing monsters, The Old Traditions will present you with a riddle that reads: "though timeworn, you endure. Before your colorful kin, I say: Yes, I keep out traditions!"

Out of context, this can seem a little confusing, but if you head to the next location in your quest log, you'll soon find the answer. After fighting your way to the highlighted location, you'll come across an ancient statue. 

Once here, open your action wheel. You'll be looking for the "yes" emote, which isn't equipped by default. To equip it, press the "Customize" button once the wheel is open and map the "yes" emote to one of the segments. 

Once you've done this, simply perform the "yes" emote in front of the statue, and a treasure chest will spawn nearby. 

Congratulations, you've now finished The Old Traditions, and have some shiny new treasure to show for it. Should you be lucky enough to find some new gear inside, why not check out our transmog guide to help you get the most out of your new fashion options?

The best classes in Diablo 4 have changed somewhat since the most recent update for the game. However, we at TRG have broken down all the changes so as to give you the best possible guide.

In Diablo 4 your choice of class has a huge impact on your game experience. As with many of the best RPGs the classes of Diablo 4 play remarkably differently, offering distinctive ways to enjoy the title's dynamic open world and gorgeous gothic art style. This is especially true in multiplayer, where different classes synergize together in powerful and sometimes unexpected ways. 

With Diablo 4's first season of content already released, players across the world are rolling up new characters to get the most out of the Season of the Malignant. Whether or not they want to experience the new story, or unlock some new outfits for their characters with Diablo 4's transmog system, there's still plenty of choice out there for players old and new. 

When building this tier list, we've not only considered the power of these classes at endgame, but also their learning curves, accessibility for new players, and how fun they are to level. Our holistic approach ensures that you'll be able to make the best decisions possible when it comes to Diablo 4 classes. Read on to find out more.

Diablo 4 class tier list

Here's our Diablo 4 tier list, ranked from best to worse. Read on for more info on why we've placed each of the classes where they are in the list.

1 - Necromancer

2 - Barbarian

3 - Sorcerer

4 - Druid

5 - Rogue

Diablo 4 best classes: Necromancer

The Necromancer has earned a special place at the top of our Diablo 4 best classes guide. With its wide variety of playstyles on offer, unique class mechanic and stunning visual design, the Necromancer is, undoubtedly, the cream of the Diablo 4 crop. 

Each of the three main playstyles available to Necromancer players are easy to learn and hard to master, accessible for new players, while also rewarding veterans who spend time tweaking their character’s skills around certain gear or playstyles. Bone specialists dole out large bursts of damage relative to their Essence pool, while Blood Necromancers place an emphasis on mobility, spawning Blood Orbs for buffs and healing. Lastly we have Shadow Necromancers, who deal out damage over time spells and area of effect damage with ease. 

On top of all this, Necromancers have access to minions. Raised from the corpses of slain enemies, these skeletons can be tweaked to suit your playstyle or dismissed entirely in exchange for a passive buff. You can also manipulate corpses, turning them into traps or explosions. If that’s not enough for you, Necromancers can also summon massive golems, which, like their smaller counterparts, can be tailored to your whims. 

Necromancer is a solid, distinctive class, with a great deal to offer for beginners and veterans alike. 

Diablo 4 Barbarian

Easily one of the best Diablo 4 classes, Barbarian has made up for its poor reputation in the beta, with numerous world-first players choosing to use the class. Having played Barbarian a great deal, we can confirm that it is, in fact, highly underrated. The Barbarian allows you to be a tough, tanky powerhouse – invaluable in multiplayer and hard as nails when solo. 

Though choice of skills is very important for the Barbarian, their unique class mechanic adds another layer of decision-making. The Arsenal system means that Barbarians can equip up to four different weapons simultaneously, allowing them to tailor their weapons to their different attacks. This means that, when a Barbarian player picks a skill, they also need to consider which weapon will best allow that skill to reach its full potential. 

Barbarian skills are less clearly divided between different schools, instead focusing on a mishmash of area of effect, defensive, buff-based, and debuff-inflicting abilities. Barbarians are extremely versatile, able to be built to be mobile killing machines or stoic tanks that support their allies. 

Diablo 4 Sorcerer

The Sorcerer ranks respectably amongst the best Diablo 4 classes, offering a degree of breadth and depth that’s comparable to the Necromancer, along with a suite of different builds which serve to take the class in wildly different directions. 

Sorcerer abilities come in one of three flavors: Pyromancy, Frost, and Shock. Each element plays distinctively, albeit in a way that feels very intuitive. Pyromancy has an emphasis on area of effect and damage over time abilities, as well as limited crowd control. Shock is excellent for dishing out status effects and injuring multiple targets in a fast-paced, frenzied playstyle. Frost, my personal favorite, makes ample use of the protective barriers as well as freezing enemies in place with cumulative debuffs. 

The sorcerer, perhaps more than other classes, rewards players for mixing and matching. It’s extremely satisfying to use blizzard to pin a group of enemies in place before roasting them with a fireball. Though all of Diablo 4’s classes allow for some degree of mixing and matching, it feels the most fluid with the Sorcerer. This is especially true in light of their unique class mechanic, which lets you seamlessly swap in passive bonuses between fights based on your existing spell loadout.

Unfortunately, Sorcerers have been on the receiving end of more than a few nerfs in recent updates, ensuring that the class is no longer as rewarding at high level or as durable as it once was, forcing us to bump the class down a notch.   

Diablo 4 Druid

Though the Druid is by no means a disappointment to play, its status as a hybrid class can sometimes muddy the waters. However, if you can make sense of the different tools in the Druid’s arsenal, then you’ll find it to be one of the best Diablo 4 classes. 

The Druid uses a combination of shapeshifting and elemental magic, crossing the streams between the Barbarian and the Sorcerer in terms of feel. Druids also have access to a variety of companions, making them reminiscent of the Necromancer in some respects, too. 

Druid skills come in four types: Earth, Storm, Werebear, and Werewolf. Though undoubtedly extremely versatile, this quality can be something of a double-edged sword, leading to a character who’s a jack of all trades, and master of none. Though this style very much suits some players, it can make the Druid a difficult point of entry for newcomers. 

Visually speaking, however, the Druid is spectacular, offering rapid, dramatic animal transformations and distinctive, naturalistic armor. If you’re a confident Diablo 4 player and want to cover all of your bases, then the Druid may well be for you.  

Diablo 4 Rogue

It pains me to put the Rogue at the bottom of our Diablo 4 class tier list. Personally, I loved playing this class in early access. However, though it has a very distinct class identity, the Rogue is extremely fiddly and rarely flashy, especially compared to the ostentatious lightning storms of the Sorcerer or the undead hordes of the Necromancer. 

However, if you’re looking for a precise, detail-oriented class and don’t mind being more understated in your approach, the Rogue may well be the right fit for you. On the surface, the Rogue looks as though it offers a contrast between close and long-range playstyles, embodied by the Cutthroat and Marksman skills, respectively. However, scratch the surface of the skill tree and you’ll find traps and embuements. Both very situational groups of skills, traps allow you to lay down obstacles on the battlefield while imbuements allow you to attach elemental effects to your attacks. 

Rogue skills are highly situational compared to other classes, making them difficult to use correctly. Successfully use Caltrops to disengage and lure your enemy into a poison trap, though, and you’ll feel like a sneaky genius. 

Looking for more great titles? Check out our list of the best co-op games and the best horror games if you're looking to double down on Diablo 4's gothic multiplayer goodness.

The first character to reach level 100 in Diablo 4’s aptly named Hardcore permadeath mode has perished, not two days after reaching the game’s highest level. 

Streamer Souaïb Hanaf, also known as “cArn_”, was the first person to reach level 100 in Diablo 4’s challenging Hardcore mode. However, the glory of this impressive achievement was short-lived as his character perished not in epic battle, but due to a server disconnection. 

All it took was a moment. When cArn_ logged back in, he found that his character had been killed, not by a fearsome demon or a loathsome abomination, but by a humble vampire bat. 

cArn_ himself was (quite understandably) rather alarmed by this turn of events. “I’m f*cking… are you kidding me?” he asked on stream to an audience of equally shocked viewers. 

Despite Diablo 4 having a smooth launch compared to Diablo 3’s infamous opening week back in 2012, the launch of such a rapidly selling online title is going to have teething problems no matter how well-prepared the servers might be. 

While a player on normal difficulty would simply be able to respawn, having to do little more than pay to repair their gear, the Hardcore Diablo 4 world is not nearly as merciful. While it’s sad to see the end of cArn_’s avatar, the fact remains that the streamer set a world record – a feat that no bug or server glitch can take away from him. 

cArn_ has a long history of high-level play, having cut his teeth on professional Starcraft 2 and Dota back in the day. It’s unlikely that a player of his experience would have been blind to the risks involved in Hardcore mode play during a launch period, however, these risks didn’t stop him from claiming the crown.

Despite the occasional bout of server instability, Diablo 4 has a lot to offer. One of the best RPGs of recent memory, Diablo 4 offers a distinctive gothic art style as well as meticulously crafted open-world encounters. Whether you’re adventuring in multiplayer or going solo, the rewarding kill-loot-repeat cycle is a gift that keeps on giving.  

Despite its name, Diablo 4’s open world of Sanctuary is a scary place. Monsters and brigands lurk around every corner and, though you can venture out alone, it often feels far safer to have a buddy by your side. I certainly found this during my own multiplayer forays. 

Since I was playing the willowy-looking Rogue, I felt especially comforted by the 7-foot-tall slab of muscle and armor that accompanied me. My friend and I made an unlikely duo as we roamed the wastes of Diablo 4's disquieting yet artistically stunning overworld. 

To be a Rogue in Diablo 4’s macabre hellscape is to be constantly using guile and trickery to avoid blows, throwing traps, and diving out of danger. If you’re smart, this strategy can take you far, but sometimes no level of agility makes up for sheer toughness. This is where my buddy's Barbarian War Cry came in. 

On paper, it looks simple: a taunt that recharges every 25 seconds and buffs the damage of nearby party members for a short while. In practice, however, the judicious use of this skill was the difference between life and death. The cooldown is just long enough for War Cry to be a consistent part of your arsenal but also requires you to be cautious about when you use it. In addition to the taunting effect, the damage buff ensures that a skillful group of players can quickly take pressure off by deftly focusing fire on trickier enemies. Use it too early, and you won’t have it when things get hairy. Use it too late, and your friends will perish.

With War Cry, Blizzard has taken two simple mechanics, paired them together and given them a complex life of their own in the multiplayer context. This is a common refrain across Diablo 4 and is why, as fun as the game might be to tackle alone, the real heart of the RPG’s appeal lies in the frantic, yet surprisingly cerebral multiplayer. 

Killing with Convenience 

Diablo 4’s multiplayer experience is a smooth and painless ride, ensuring that your frustrations remain directed at the hordes of demons rather than the game itself. First off: you can group up with pals regardless of any level differences. Enemies scale to each player on an individual basis, meaning that high-level characters can adventure alongside low-level allies and still receive challenges and gear proportionate to their level. 

What’s more, you can seamlessly teleport to allies directly by using the Town Portal system. This means that the game’s sizable open world won’t prove a logistical obstacle when it comes to your dreams of multiplayer carnage. Loot swapping is easy, and enemies in Diablo 4 drop loot individually for each player, too – squabbles are a thing of the past. 

On top of that, Diablo 4’s social infrastructure works seamlessly. All I had to do was invite my friends to join me, and they appeared in my version of the world; no awkward loading screens or technical mishaps. 

The game also telegraphs your allies’ actions. Not only are the animations for the different skills distinctive, but enemy health bars will change color should they be made Vulnerable by an attack from you or an ally. This, in turn, invites you to press the advantage. Other status effects are marked by symbols, which are for the most part, visible and intuitive, allowing you to better synergize your abilities. 

Did your buddy just make that skeleton Vulnerable? Hit them with an attack that exploits this and you’ll get results. Conversely, if your ally is Vulnerable, you’ll know it, and have ample opportunity to support them.  

Join the party

When it comes to the experience itself, the deliberately disruptive design of the open world is somehow magnified under the lens of multiplayer. As you and your crew venture through Sanctuary, you’ll bounce between events and dungeons like the grimmest, darkest pinball. In single-player, the urge for loot and exploration is enough to egg you on, but, with a team of like-minded people at your back, the impetus to unearth Sanctuary’s rewards and secrets feels intensified. 

The varied goals of your group’s members create a shopping list of engaging activities, except, instead of looking for milk and eggs, you’re looking for massive scythes and codices of eldritch power. 

The weight of Diablo 4’s opportunities sits more comfortably on multiple pairs of shoulders. You start to have conversations, deliberating over where to go and what to do. Even your deliberations won’t survive contact with the outside world, as Sanctuary accosts you with MMO-style emergent events.  

Diablo 4 expertly straddles the line between giving multiplayer parties too much control over their journeys and not enough. It speaks to the skill of Blizzard’s developers that the multiplayer experience almost always sits at a precisely tuned middle point between these two poles.   

Thanks to the quality of life improvements, you can even split the party, reconvening should one of you encounter something particularly challenging or interesting. Then comes the battles proper, where your group’s abilities neatly interact in pleasing, understated ways. Loot the bodies, rinse, and repeat.  

Diablo 4 encourages you to explore your way, to take in the chaotic and brimming open world of Sanctuary on your own terms. It’s clear that a great deal of work went into calibrating the systems that make this possible. The result, tuned and polished to perfection, leaps from the screen and nestles directly into your brain stem, where it belongs.

• Diablo 4 PC gaming accessory collection will let you slay demons in style

Diablo 4 Early Access is here! And if you're looking for some fulsome, but quickfire information on how to take advantage of the action RPG’s generous Early Access window, then you’ll need to know how to preload Diablo 4, as well as when the game is set to go live. 

For many, Diablo 4 Early Access will be their first chance to experience the latest incarnation of Blizzard’s beloved dark fantasy series. With five classes to choose from and countless dungeons to explore, Diablo 4 offers an impressive amount of content. However, in order to take advantage of this for yourself, you’ll need to have all your ducks in a row once the Early Access servers open their doors. 

Fortunately for you, we’ve collated everything you might need to know about Diablo 4’s Early Access, including how to pre-load the game, as well as exactly when you’ll be able to start your journey through Sanctuary. Don’t get caught short – read on to learn every detail you’ll need.  

Diablo 4 Early Access: here's what you need to know

Below, you'll find everything you need to know about Early Access in Diablo 4. This includes info on when it'll go live and how to preload depending on what platform you are playing on.

Diablo 4 Early Access start times

Diablo 4 Early Access is live now! The start time was slightly different depending on where you are in the world, but Early Access is now open and live for all!

Diablo 4 preload

Diablo 4 Early Access is accessible to anyone who’s pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe Edition or Ultimate Edition of the game. It’s available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC. 

Diablo 4 is available to preload from May 30 at 7pm EST and 4pm PDT. Folks in Australia and the UK will have to wait until May 31, when the download will be available at 12am BST (midnight) and 9am AEST. 

How to preload Diablo 4 on PC

 Here’s how to preload Diablo 4 Early Access on PC:

•  Launch Battle.net 
•  Make sure you’ve got either the Digital Deluxe Edition of Ultimate Edition of Diablo 4 
•  Go to the Games tab at the top of the client  
•  Click on “All Games”, found on the left-hand tab 
•  Select Diablo 4 
•  Above “Play” on the bottom left, you’ll see a Game Version drop-down menu 
•  Click that and select Diablo 4 
•  Select the Download button below  

How to preload Diablo 4 on Xbox

Here’s how to preload Diablo 4 Early Access on Xbox Series X|S or Xbox One: 

• Launch the Xbox store 
• Make sure you’ve pre-purchased either the Digital Deluxe Edition or Ultimate Edition of Diablo 4 
• Once you’ve pre-purchased the right copy, click “Download to Console” 

How to preload Diablo 4 on PlayStation

 This is how to preload Diablo 4 Early Access on PS4 and PS5 

• Open the PlayStation Store 
• Make sure you’ve pre-purchased either the Digital Deluxe Edition or Ultimate Edition of Diablo 4 
• Open up your Library and select Diablo 4 
• Select “Preload” from the menu 

Now that you know how to preload Diablo 4's Early Access, nothing will keep you from exploring the eerie lands of Sanctuary once the game goes live. Good luck out there, you'll need it. 

• Diablo 4's story is doing something the series has never done before

It looks like Blizzard is to be the latest company to jump on the AI bandwagon according to recently surfaced internal emails.

With Diablo 4 right around the corner, the tarnished company could make steps towards repairing its public image with a quality gaming experience. However, it's set to rock the boat once again with an internal company email, reported on by the New York Times, that makes mention of an AI image generation tool by the name of Blizzard Diffusion.

The email, from Blizzard chief design officer Allen Adham, reportedly said staff should "prepare to be amazed" in reference to Blizzard Diffusion. The AI tool would be used to "help generate concept art for game environments as well as characters and their outfits."

The usage of AI image generators has been deeply troubling for artists who share their works and make a living online, as they have a tendency to lift from creators' works without express permission. This often leads to AI-generated imagery being pieced together from, essentially, stolen artwork.

Hopefully, this won't be the case with Blizzard Diffusion. Another email, written by Activision Blizzard chief technical officer Michael Vance, states that employees should not implement its own intellectual properties with external AI image programs. I sincerely hope this is code for something along the lines of 'we will not lift from non-company works for our image generation program.'

I do think that AI can help creative folks when used in a strictly assistance-oriented capacity. And I hope that's what's happening here with Blizzard Diffusion; learning from a database of Blizzard's own assets to streamline the creation of new ones.

However, I can't help but wonder how Blizzard Diffusion will affect the company's workers. With AI technology improving at an alarming rate, there's a chance that concept art creation at the company could become fully autonomous, and that's concerning.

Blizzard of course are far from the first player in town when it comes to utilizing AI. Controversially, Ubisoft announced plans to make use of an AI tool named Ghostwriter (thanks, Polygon) to generate features like NPC and ancillary dialogue. 

It's not something I'm particularly keen on, as I'd much prefer writing and concept art for games to have that human touch. I'm all for AI being used as a helper to make employees' lives slightly easier, but don't be surprised if we start seeing a temptation from these publishers begin taking steps toward full autonomy.

• No, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 won't be co-op

Overwatch 2 can be hard to place among the wide range of FPS titles on the market. . Mechanically, it offers a refined multiplayer artistry worthy of the legacy of Starcraft 2. As an arena shooter, it provides tantalizing layers of complexity wrapped in an aesthetic of superheroic futurism. There’s a lot to love. 

However, if you look at the backstory behind the game for even a moment, the conceit of Overwatch 2’s gripping multiplayer matches begins to unravel. Sinister Moira and angelic Mercy despise one another, while the infamous Reaper almost murdered dear, sweet Winston that one time. How are these people happy to work together on the same team?  

Overwatch has buckets of rich, detailed lore, but so little permeates the main game. Instead, Blizzard brings these distinctive characters to life in gorgeous short films, comics, and rare PVE events. If you dip your toe into the plotlines surrounding the game’s characters, you’ll see that more than a few questions are raised. 

Wildly improbable team-ups in Overwatch 2 are par for the course, as are heartbreaking matchups. The other day, while playing as Brigitte, I dispatched an enemy Reinhardt, forcing my favorite support hero to murder her surrogate father in cold blood. It felt deeply weird to hear Brigitte cheerily quip: “Got you this time, Reinhardt!” after pummeling her mentor into the ground.  

This is because Overwatch 2 operates like fanfiction. It takes the characters from short films and comics and places them in improbable, weird, and sometimes downright unsettling situations. Overwatch is like a collection of action figures being set up in fights by an irreverent child. This varied ensemble cast of characters deserves far better. 

Underwatched

It wasn’t always like this. The original Overwatch boasted a small range of story-driven co-op missions released throughout the game’s 6-year lifespan. The Storm Rising, Retribution, and Uprising updates allowed you to jump into key missions from Overwatch’s lore, turning the game into a coop shooter where players would fight waves of NPCs while completing objectives, not unlike Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood or gothic coop shooter Darktide. 

Uprising saw players delve into the past and fight through a famous mission where Tracer, Torbjorn, Reinhardt, and Mercy were dispatched to London to help fight Null Sector – a group of robot terrorists. The mission was a treat for Overwatch fans, giving us a glimpse into these characters’ pasts. Seeing Tracer as a freshly recruited Overwatch rookie was a particular highlight, alongside a younger Reinhardt. Though taking only 15 minutes to complete, the mission offered a rewarding glimpse into Overwatch’s past, every line of dialogue laden with juicy character details. 

Storm Rising and Retribution offered similar narrative-rich coop experiences, with Retribution even allowing players to take on the role of morally gray Blackwatch operatives.

Initially, a PvE mode was promised to coincide with Overwatch 2’s release in 2022. However, this was not to be, as the release of PvE content was pushed back to 2023. Overwatch 2 is poorer for its absence. Even though they were small, self-contained missions, the PvE content in Overwatch  went a long way to making the game more than just fanfiction by highlighting and celebrating the existence of Overwatch’s cohesive narrative. 

In an interview with NME, Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller promised that once released, the new mode will “go into a lot more depth with not just the characters in the universe, but all the big events happening inside of it” (via GamesRadar). It’s clear, then, that the developers are aware that the story mode is both sorely needed and conspicuous by its absence. 

Overpromised

I will admit, Overwatch 2’s broad and ever-growing roster must make the prospect of crafting a PvE campaign highly daunting to Blizzard. However, this doesn’t mean the characters can’t be provided with a shared narrative context through a well-told PvE storyline. 

For instance: every one of Overwatch 2’s characters has been affected by the Omnic Crisis, a worldwide robot uprising that caused untold devastation across the globe. Blizzard can catch a lot of narrative fish by focusing on wide-scale, larger-than-life events by casting an appropriately wide net.  

However, any sort of Overwatch PvE campaign is a tall order to say the least and no matter what Blizzard do, it may struggle to accommodate all of its characters. That said, when it comes to story content, something is better than nothing. 

Overwatch 2’s PvP matches are fun, well-paced affairs that have kept me going back for more, but they are, at their core, fanfiction; bereft of context or bearing on Overwatch’s wider plot. Overwatch is a captivating setting, and the developers owe it to themselves and the fans to give these characters and their stories the treatment they deserve.  

• Overwatch 2’s openly pansexual hero may help others come out of the closet

Blizzard has announced that Diablo 4 will receive quarterly updates to its story content along with a free and premium Battle Pass that’ll be updated more frequently. 

As the release date for Diablo 4 crawls closer, Blizzard has begun to expand on the roadmap for the upcoming ARPG. In Game Informer’s latest cover story, Diablo 4’s associate game director, Joe Piepiora, described “meaty” updates that would consist of additional story content which will be tied to new features and mechanics. However, it’s important to note that these updates won’t go as far as being an expansion in and of themselves. 

These story updates will coincide with a seasonal Battle Pass, which will have both free and premium paid options. Sadly for those excited to dive straight into this pass on day one, you’ll be slightly disappointed as Blizzard has previously confirmed that the first season will not be available at launch and will, in fact, come sometime later. 

A left turn  

While the crux of Diablo 4 stays true to the previous titles in the series, Blizzard’s approach to this much-anticipated ARPG is something of a new take. 

While previous games in the series have received updates in the form of expansion packs, moving Diable 4 into the realm of live service is an interesting step that mimics Blizzard’s approach to other recent games, such as Overwatch 2. 

This is primarily seen in the implementation of a Battle Pass. These are now part and parcel of almost every live service game, first popularized by Fortnite. Considering there is a free option alongside its premium paid service, Diablo 4 is already more user-friendly than Diablo Immortal, the mobile Diablo title, which relied on tremendous amounts of microtransactions.  

Better of two evils  

All things considered, I’d take a Battle Pass over countless microtransactions any day. Unlike the latter, a fully fleshed-out Battle Pass has the capacity to deliver exciting and useful cosmetics and features at a fair price for the amount you pay. The free option also gives fans who don’t want to spend more money on Diablo 4 incentives to level up while enjoying the game on their own terms.

When you combine this with the promise of quarterly updates to story content, relevant features, and mechanics, it seems like Blizzard is prepared to put a lot of love into the ARPG. 

Honestly, it’s the least they could do. Diablo is such a widely loved series that seeing how it was butchered in Diablo Immortal hurt my soul. Luckily it seems like Diablo 4 is going to set things straight with a focus on fresh content, community-driven incentives, and worthwhile perks and prizes. 

• Diablo 4 patch attempts to exorcise the game's demons

The next big World of Warcraft patch has a release date, and it’s sooner than we expected. 

World of Warcraft patch 10.1, Embers of Neltharion will be coming to our hard drives on May 2 with a complimentary Dragonflight Season 2 update set to go live on May 9. Embers of Neltharion includes a host of new features, such as a new zone, a new renown track, updates to Dragonriding, and -controversially- the addition of cross-faction guilds. 

The new zone, Zaralek Cavern is a cave system underneath the Dragon Isles is full of dark secrets and the remnants of the dragon Neltharion’s dark experiments. Those that venture into Zaralek won’t be alone, however, as they’ll be able to make friends with the Niffen, a local culture of mole people as well as the shamanistic Drogbar.

Dragonriding fans are also in for a treat, as update 10.1 is bringing with it new race courses, glyphs abilities and a new drake: the Winding Slitherdrake. We can also expect the usual updates to class tuning and balancing, as well as new gear, mounts, and pets to get your hands on. 

The Dragonflight Season 2 update is set to follow on May 9, bringing a great deal of extra content to WoW’s endgame, including a new raid, and additions to the Mythic+ Rotation. Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible offers nine bosses for players to contend with as they fight their way through Neltharion’s secret laboratory in the heart of Zaralek. As with Season 1, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties will release simultaneously, so there’s something for everyone.

Perhaps the biggest change, however, comes in the implementation of cross-faction guilds. Starting in patch 10.1, guilds will gain the ability to invite players of the opposite faction, as well as giving them access to the guild chat, guild bank, and guild calendar. Given that World of Warcraft has often emphasized the conflict between the scrappy Horde and the industrious Alliance, this feature has proven somewhat controversial.

Crossing the streams 

Cross-faction play isn’t new to World of Warcraft. Players have been able to form groups with players from other factions for Raids, dungeons, and PvP battlegrounds since the previous expansion, Shadowlands. However, the jump to cross-faction guilds is unprecedented. 

WoW earned its place amongst the best MMOs because of its distinctive world-building and definitive take on online community building. The conflict between the Horde and the Alliance has been a staple of the title since its release back in 2004. The iconic opening cinematic took great pains to show off the fractious relationship between the two fantasy power blocs, making great use of one of the best RPG tropes out there. 

Battle for Azeroth – the expansion before last – based its entire main storyline around a reignition of the old factional conflict. Despite some of the expansion’s missteps when it came to endgame progression and content design, it was gratifying to see WoW return to its roots.

This breaking of a traditional communication barrier between the two factions is a welcome quality of life change for some, while, for others, it spells an end to a core part of the game’s identity. If factions can group up, form guilds, and trade together, then what’s the point of selecting a faction in the first place? It’s a poignant question, and I’m not convinced that I currently have an answer.

That said, the introduction of cross-faction guilds is, at least, an interesting step forward for Blizzard. It’ll be fascinating to see how this change affects the game’s social makeup in the long term.

• World of Warcraft: Dragonflight brings updates we’ve waited 18 years for

Diablo 4’s early access beta test has been overshadowed by technical issues, to which Blizzard has responded with an important hotfix. 

The Diablo 4 hotfix has been publicized on Blizzard’s official forums and “contains updates to improve server stability issues [and is also] targeted at fixing and improving the queue issues console players have reported since the early access launch.” 

Community Manager filthierich said, “thank everyone for taking the time to play, provide feedback and share your experiences with us.” This latest hotfix comes in the wake of numerous successive server hotfixes and is the latest effort on Blizzard’s part to bring stability to their beta servers. These problems have been especially prevalent on consoles, with folks on the PS5, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S having a harder time logging in than their PC counterparts.  

Long queues and server instability aren’t the only issues that players have been experiencing over the course of the early access beta. In an earlier post from community manager PezRadar, it was noted that “players are sometimes unable to join a party with other players while in-game”. Other potential issues include “rubberbanding occurring while players are transitioning between zones” and “high RAM and GPU usage occurring on select hardware.” 

 How can you play the beta?  

Diablo 4’s open beta will be available on March 24, so the isometric RPG’s server infrastructure is soon to come under pressure once again. 

The Diablo 4 open beta is available to anyone who pre-purchases the title, and gives participants the opportunity to earn special rewards when the game is properly launched in June. We can but hope that hotfixes and patches will be enough to give beta testers a smoother ride this time around. 

The last mainline Diablo title, Diablo 3 is over a decade old. Though [Diablo Immortal] attempted to fill the gap, the title’s heavy use of microtransations and lacklustre campaign left a foul taste in players’ mouths. Given the drought fulfilling Diablo content that fans have had to endure, Diablo 4 finds itself shouldering the expectations in a big way.    

Early signs look promising. Diablo 4 may be shaping up to be the series’ best yet. Though the final product is still a way off, it is my hope that Diablo 4’s beta process will give Blizzard the opportunity to fix the game’s problems in advance of the launch in June. After all, beta tests are just that: tests. That said, though the developer has ample opportunity to learn from these early access issues, we still don’t know if Blizzard will stick the landing come launch day. 

All the devils are here

Despite some of the problems with server stability being pretty significant, it’s worth remembering that Diablo 4’s launch is still several months away, on June 6. These sorts of beta programs are excellent opportunities for game developers to catch these sorts of teething problems before their product hits the shelves. 

From World of Warcraft: Shadowlands to Overwatch 2  server instability and long queues aren’t unheard of when it comes to the releases of Blizzard titles with significant online elements. That said, just because these problems are par for the course, doesn’t mean that they’re not frustrating. 

Overwatch 2 had 30,000 queues on launch with three to four-hour waits; sometimes it’s best to ere on the side of caution when it comes to Blizzard releases. However, it may well be that Diablo 4’s teething problems which give Blizzard the opportunity it needs to put together a smoother launch experience this time around. 

• Diablo 4's open world is as Diablo as it gets

Have you ever played a video game and thought to yourself, “Hey! That guy sure is the digital embodiment of a triple-pickle quarter pounder with bacon?” 

Of course you have. Burger King Japan knows that you crave burger-iffic versions of all your favorite characters from the best RPGs and beyond, so it intends to deliver the goods.

BK Holdings announced its latest ad campaign is all about promoting Diablo 4. With none other than the queen of hell herself taking center stage as the face of the project, the Lilith Spicy Tomato Double Whopper Cheeseburger will be offered in Burger King outlets in the region from December 16. The scorcher of a hamburger will be joined by two other limited-time creations that are also based on Blizzard’s demonic hack n’ slash action series. All this talk of blood and burgers has me hungry to try out BK’s curious game of associations for myself, though.

Burger Queen

Although you might not look at Lilith, Queen of the Succubi, and immediately think of spicy tomato sauce, BK Holdings wishes to pay tribute to the misunderstood character. “It is a burger inspired by the anger of Lilith, who descended to Sanctuary after being exiled for a long time due to a blood ritual,” it said, referencing the events of the second game in the Diablo series.

“This product is a special burger finished with a flame-grilled beef double patty, four slices of cheese, and a spicy tomato hot sauce,” reads the item description on Famitsu. The sauce in question “features the moderate spiciness of chili peppers and the umami of garlic,” which actually sounds pretty delicious.

Other burgers in the Diablo 4 Burger King collection are the Butcher Double Meat BBQ Cheese Burger and the Diablo Garlic Double Cheese Burger, and you can purchase any of the three (or all of them, if you’re feeling particularly devious) to get a complimentary Lilith sticker with your order. Excuse me whilst I book a ticket to Tokyo.

A pizza the action

As I read up on BK’s whimsical burgering of gaming icons, I couldn’t help but wonder: which fast food items would my favorite characters be?

One of my favorite games from 2022 was Resident Evil: Village, so here is what I think three of the Four Lords would be in the form of a pizza. I’m going to be using the nightmarish offerings from Pizza Hut Hong Kong as my basis for comparison, so I hope you have a strong stomach.  

•  Salvatore Moreau (Seafood Delight): not only does this insidious creation feature a tantalizing mix of scallops, cranberries, and carrots, but the orange mayo sauce adds a particularly disconcerting finish that I think mirrors Moreau’s generally offputting demeanor. 
• Lady Dimitrescu (Scallop Cheesy Offering): let’s face it – Alcina is a queen, so she has to have a pizza that is crowned by, yes, another pizza. With five kinds of meat and the choice between either scallops or peaches with pesto dressing, Lady D’s spiritual pizza sibling can’t get much funkier or commanding of your attention, for better or worse.
• Karl Heisenberg (Beef Legend): just like Heisenberg, this pizza starts out strong with a base of beef, peppers, and barbecue sauce. Things start to get a bit out of hand when you dig a little deeper, as just like Heisenberg’s hopes to use Rose to destroy Miranda, our tastebuds are scuppered by a combo of peach, cherries, and tartar sauce.

But what about Donna Beneviento, what pizza topping could possibly capture the black maid and her horrifying doll, Angie? All that’s coming to mind is that time I forgot to put a topping on the Tesco plain pizza base. Charred on the bottom, pale and flavorless on the top. It was not a good day.

Hopefully, Burger King’s diabolical burgers take off, and we see a whole platter of gaming tie-ins released.

• Diablo 4 drags the series’ demon-slaying, loot-harvesting delight into the 2020s

Overwatch 2, the recently launched and highly anticipated sequel to Blizzard’s team shooter game, started its journey with a major distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. 

According to multiple media reports, many players wanting to give the new game a shot were met with a message saying 'Game server connection failed...retrying'.

While it was first thought the server issues were related to an outpouring of interest from the community, the truth was later confirmed by Blizzard to be somewhat more sinister.

All hands on deck

In an update to fans on Twitter, Blizzard’s president Mike Ybarra first said: “Teams are working hard on server issues with Overwatch 2. We are humbled by the excitement of players and will continue to focus on issues and get players into the fun! Thanks for your patience.” 

However, an hour later, Ybarra confirmed that server issues were, in fact, the result of a cyberattack: “Unfortunately we are experiencing a mass DDoS attack on our servers. Teams are working hard to mitigate/manage. This is causing a lot of drop/connection issues.”

The latest update came from Overwatch 2 game director, Aaron Keller. “We’re steadily making progress on server issues and stability, as well as working through a second DDoS attack,” he tweeted. “We’re all hands on deck and will continue to work throughout the night. Thank you for your patience - we’ll share more info as it becomes available.”

While the DDoS attack seems to be causing quite the disruption, not everyone is affected. As reported by The Verge, there are many streamers on Twitch who have managed to log in and are streaming Overwatch 2 games to their audience,

Overwatch 2 is a first-person shooter developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Even though it’s advertised as a direct sequel to the original 2016 Overwatch game, many reviewers consider it more of a remix, rather than a straight-up sequel.

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Via: The Verge

Images of early concept Overwatch 2 menus have been posted by a UI artist, giving some hints towards possible new features coming to the game. 

Jayson Kirby, who worked on Overwatch between 2017 and 2020, has posted early concepts of the user experience for the sequel on his Artstation page. It shows off the minimalized UI that has been seen in previous Overwatch 2 gameplay reveals, making for a very cohesive look.

However, Kirby’s work also shows some insight into the possible additions coming to Overwatch 2. Most notable is the inclusion of a battle pass in the menus, which is not currently a feature of the Overwatch experience. 

In the current version, the only real reward for continued play, past your character border and climbing the competitive ladder, are loot boxes that you receive when you level up.

A battle pass would offer a new way for players to upgrade and get rewards from continued play. Things like the Fortnite Battle Pass have become staples for each new season of content of Epic's battle royale, and have proven immensely popular.

Interestingly, battle passes are generally used in games that have a free-to-play element. It’s speculative, but this could suggest that Overwatch 2 may have some kind of broken-off section, like PvP, that is free. 

In another UI example on the artist's page, there's an animation that shows a card for a guild that supports up to 520 players. This seems like it would be used as a way for like-minded players to find and play with each other. 

Of course, all of these were worked on years ago, and Kirby hasn’t been on the project since 2020. It’s very likely the final design of the menus and the features have changed drastically since then. None of this should be considered a lock for the final product. 

At the very least though, it shows that these concepts were at some point considered by Blizzard. Whether they make it into the final release is impossible to say. It seems unlikely a battle pass will come with the Overwatch 2 beta, which lands later this month, but with how the game is getting segmented from its PvP and its PvE, how all this works together, in the end, is anyone's guess. 

• Overwatch 2's beta is on the way. Here's how to signup!

Blizzard has announced that it is working on a brand new franchise, and has shown off a little about the game in a recruiting effort.

The new game is only being referred to as ‘Unannounced Survival Game’ and details remain light. The title, mechanics, and story are not yet clear, beyond it obviously being a survival game. 

On its official website, Blizzard revealed a bit more about its title, saying: "Blizzard is embarking on our next quest. We are going on a journey to a whole new universe, home to a brand-new survival game for PC and console. A place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived. A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored.”

Two pieces of artwork accompany the announcement, the most prominent being some kind of ranger with a quasi-futuristic-looking canine helmet. It’s clear the game is meant to be a fantasy title, but it also seems to have smatterings of sci-fi. There is also another image on the announcement page that shows two people from a modern-like setting finding a portal into the fantasy land. That may suggest the franchise features a ‘real world’ representation and will have players passing to the fantasy setting.

The recruitment effort for the game suggests that this title is still some way off, though. The title is looking for key roles such as a Lead Software Engineer, Level Designer, Senior Character Artist and a whole host of other key Art, Design, and Engineering roles. The post itself also references the game being at an “early stage.” Because of that, don’t expect to hear much from the game in the near future.

The new franchise comes at a difficult time

The development of this new franchise is surrounded by many complications and considerations. Chiefly, Blizzard has been the center of heinous accusations and legal action due to an alleged fratboy work culture that led to many women coming out and speaking about their experiences with sexual harassment and discrimination at the company. 

It also comes on the heels of Microsoft’s recent proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. It’s not clear if this will affect the project at all, be it for good or bad, but it’s another moving factor in a troubled time for the company. 

However, there are some encouraging signs for the team behind the new franchise. Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, who has proven to have reliable insight into Blizzard recently, shared that he had heard nothing but good things about the team and project. In a tweet, he said:

An ex-Activision Blizzard producer, Stephanie Krutsick, who has campaigned as part of the #ABetterABK hashtag also said under the announcement tweet: 

While it’s important to remember this is anecdotal, it seems that signs from inside the company are at least promising in terms of the culture and buzz around the development team behind the title. 

Here’s hoping that remains true. Blizzard has a history of taking clunky and tired genres and infusing them with new mainstream life, such as Mobas and Overwatch, World of Warcraft and MMOs, Hearthstone and TCGs. If Blizzard can capture its magic once again, the survival genre seems like the perfect candidate. 

• If you want to get the lowdown of everything that happened during the proposed Microsoft acquisition, read TechRadar's live blog as it happened.