Just when Geoff Keighley had started to fade from your memory, he comes rubber-banding back with a vengeance - snap! It's Gamescom week and it kicks off with Opening Night Live this evening from 7pm UK time (other Opening Night Live timings here). A pre-show with additional announcements will begin at 6.30pm UK. We'll be watching and reporting on it live, as always, right here, so you can either keep abreast of announcements while you do something else, or you can join in with your thoughtful and amusing comments. Please keep us company. Please.

What do we expect to see today? Well, probably Geoff Keighley, but also the new Indiana Jones game, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Dune Awakening. We're also expecting Little Nightmares creator Tarsier to unveil its new project, which could be exciting. On top of that: Diablo 4 expansion Vessel of Hatred, Civilization 7, hero shooter Marvel Rivals, Lost Records (the project made by the creators of Life is Strange), Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (which was recently delayed), and Black Ops 6. Keighley's best pal Hideo Kojima has also been tweeting enigmatic silhouetted pictures of actors who are presumably playing roles in Death Stranding 2.

And before you ask, "Yes, there will be new game announcements," Keighley said on X.

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SteelSeries, the OG esports brand known for blending gaming and culture, has partnered with Blizzard Entertainment to drop a sick new line of World of Warcraft-themed gear. With WoW’s tenth expansion, The War Within, on the horizon, this limited-edition collection is bringing back all the nostalgia while hooking you up with some serious in-game bonuses.…

The post SteelSeries and Blizzard Team Announce World of Warcraft Gear appeared first on Invision Game Community.

At this afternoon’s Opening Night Live show at Gamescom 2024, Grinding Gear Games formally announced that early access for Path of Exile 2 is slated for November 15th. In other words, MOARPG fans will have about a month to finish up Diablo IV’s Vessel of Hatred, which launches October 8th, before moseying on over to […]

Overwatch 2’s fight against cheaters and bad player behavior continues on, and while it’s likely a never-ending war, Blizzard is opening its latest player behavior-focused dev blog with a victorious claim against bad apples: The studio has banned over 500K cheaters and either banned or suspended another 40K accomplices, all while promising new anti-cheat tools […]

Gamescom 2024 in Cologne, Germany, is about to begin with Geoff Keighley’s Opening Night Live spectacle, a two-hour parade of trailers, advertisements, and ideally, new game announcements that kick off the show and set the stage for the event… oh yeah, and give those of us back home some distraction. Thanks to public hints and […]

One of the hallmarks of advancing technology is that power increases while form factor decreases, and now that looks to be true of the original 1997 ARPG Diablo, which can now be played on a web browser or a mobile phone thanks to the efforts of some fans. This web-based port of the game is […]

It’s the last Tuesday reset for World of Warcraft before The War Within arrives, and in many ways, the game is already off to the races. Of particular note is that the three-month Pandaria Remix event has concluded and all involved characters will wake up, blinking like newborn babes, in the light of normal servers […]

For Battle Bards’ penultimate episode, Syp and Syl explore some EPIC battle music across many MMOs. After all, if we’re going to go out in style, that style’s going to be loud enough to blast a hole in your eardrums! We also learn that nobody likes the Flute Guy. Battle Bards is the world’s first, best, […]

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The Overwatch 2-playing world is close to the launch of Season 12, and when it does arrive, it will bring a host of updates to the shooter’s competitive play as detailed in the game’s latest Director’s Take post. System Designer Gavin Winter outlines several new additions to the competitive scene that will arrive in the […]

It’s now possible to quickly and easily play the original 1997 Diablo on your PC or phone via a simple website. Just load it up on your browser and you can start killing demons and skeletons like it’s the ‘90s all over again.

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Blizzard Entertainment has released a new trailer for Diablo IV expansion “Vessel of Hatred” introducing …

Source

Season 12 of Overwatch 2 is themed heavily around Egyptian gods, but Egyptian heroes like Ana and Pharah aren't getting the spotlight. This season's Mythic Skin, based on Anubis, is going to Reaper.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/1ero9hz/why_didnt_ram_get_anubis_this_is_so_stupid/

On the Overwatch subreddit, players were shocked by the decision to give Reaper a skin based off of Anubis over Ramattra, given Ramattra's early design concepts. In a 2017 video, Blizzard shared the concept that ultimately led to Ramattra; an Omnic, wearing Egyptian-styled garb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU1V1pHYc_M&t=520s

Another Developer Update from Blizzard briefly goes over the team's decision to give Reaper the Anubis skin. Lead Concept Artist, Morten Skaalvik, mentions that a meeting was held to discuss who the Mythic Skin should go to. Skaalvik says that the meeting was concluded quickly as everyone had "instantly agreed it needed to be Reaper."

The reasoning behind this decision stems from Reaper being closely associated with death and Anubis being the Egyptian god of death. While the logic behind this decision is fair, players on Twitter/X agree that the skin should have gone to Ramattra.

https://twitter.com/rammaxyuri/status/1823854169020879311

For additional salt in the wounds, it's still unclear if Ramattra will receive any new skins in the upcoming season. The trailer for Season 12 reveals a variety of skins as part of the Battle Pass and skins that will be coming to the shop. Unfortunately, no new skins were shown off for the leader of Null Sector.

However, Ramattra isn't the only hero getting the short end of the stick. Despite this season's theme, Egyptian heroes Ana and Pharah only had one skin each revealed in the Season 12 trailer. The Pharah skin won't even be available in the Battle Pass, instead being obtained from the shop. Meanwhile, Mercy has received two additional skins set to appear in the shop.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/1es5urp/ok_enough_mercy_skins_this_is_getting_ridiculous/

Some players on the Overwatch subreddit have become fed up with the consistent stream of Mercy skins. Especially since this season is brimming with potential for Ana, Pharah, Ramattra, and Venture. Even though they don't have any ties to Egyptian mythology, Venture's job as an archaeologist could have led to some skins incorporating ancient Egyptian artifacts.

The post Overwatch 2 fans feel frustrated with Season 12’s skin choices appeared first on Destructoid.

There are allegations that Blizzard’s mobile action-RPG entry, Diablo Immortal, has made over $300 million in sales. The massively successful Raid: Shadow Legends earned $370 million in 2021. This puts this summer’s Diablo Immortal release ahead of the pack monetarily. Before and after the game’s release, it received a lot of negative attention. Players were […]

The complete backstories of players’ characters are now available in World of Warcraft, thanks to a new Twitter campaign. Since its launch in 2004, World of Warcraft has amassed a significant player base, with many gamers continuing to play through the game’s eight major expansions. As a result, Blizzard is looking back on earlier adventures […]

Thought that Microsoft was going to drop $72 billion on Activision Blizzard and then allow the studio to continue operation with no interference whatsoever? So this is our “we’re not surprised” faces when the news came out that Microsoft is restructuring its expensive new toy to form a smaller team that will focus on creating […]

You know what, sometimes I don’t need a full-fledged expansion to renew my love and involvement in an MMO. Sometimes all it takes is a much-needed or clever quality-of-life feature. Last year for me, it was LOTRO’s optional difficulty setting that allowed the player to make the landscape content tougher in exchange for some long-term […]

Heartless Gamer put down a whole lot of thoughts about the recent Throne and Liberty global beta, saying that while the MMO has plenty going for it, including graphics and performance, it’s not a slam-dunk by any means. “I can tell you that this beta was nothing like what I got out of New World’s […]

As the first of StarCraft II‘s spiritual successors to make it to a public launch, Stormgate will be releasing free to play for all as an early access title on August 13th, but before then, founder’s pack buyers and beta players have been given two weeks of early access-ception. Thanks to the beta key kindly […]

Since the launch of World of Warcraft, players have been waiting for and longing to have housing. It still has not happened. The reasons given range from being adjacent to plausible to just feeling outright silly, but the details don’t particularly matter in context; what matters is that we’re still sitting here without housing in […]

Activision and Microsoft have reportedly approved the creation of a new "smaller" team within Blizzard Entertainment - mostly comprised of employees from Activision's mobile-focused King division - to develop new "AA" games based on existing Blizzard properties.

That's according to Windows Central's Jez Corden, whose sources say the new initiative reflects an eagerness at Microsoft to "explore and experiment" with smaller teams within the larger organisation, in response to the "monstrously ballooning costs" of AAA game development.

Corden notes Microsoft has seen success with the likes of Sea of Thieves and Grounded, both built by comparatively small teams - and, of course, 2023's Hi-Fi Rush, created by a small team within Tango Gameworks, was heralded as a "break out hit" by Microsoft after its release.

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It barely feels like five minutes since the last one, but, somehow, Gamescom is almost upon us again. Which means publishers are starting to detail their plans for the show - and in Microsoft's case, we now know that'll include daily livestreams for those at home, plus over 50 playable games for anyone wandering the Koelnmesse's halls.

Attendees visiting Microsoft's Hall 7 Gamescom booth in person will find 50 games from Xbox Game Studios, Blizzard, Bethesda, and third-party partners, playable across 240 gaming stations. These include Age of Mythology: Retold, Ara: History Untold, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, Fallout 76: Milepost Zero, The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road, and Towerborne.

Playable third-party games, meanwhile, include Star Wars Outlaws, Space Marine 2, and the long-awaited Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl. A full list of games at the booth can be found here.

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Activision and Microsoft have reportedly approved the creation of a new "smaller" team within Blizzard Entertainment - mostly comprised of employees from Activision's mobile-focused King division - to develop new "AA" games based on existing Blizzard properties.

That's according to Windows Central's Jez Corden, whose sources say the new initiative reflects an eagerness at Microsoft to "explore and experiment" with smaller teams within the larger organisation, in response to the "monstrously ballooning costs" of AAA game development.

Corden notes Microsoft has seen success with the likes of Sea of Thieves and Grounded, both built by comparatively small teams - and, of course, 2023's Hi-Fi Rush, created by a small team within Tango Gameworks, was heralded as a "break out hit" by Microsoft after its release.

Read more

It barely feels like five minutes since the last one, but, somehow, Gamescom is almost upon us again. Which means publishers are starting to detail their plans for the show - and in Microsoft's case, we now know that'll include daily livestreams for those at home, plus over 50 playable games for anyone wandering the Koelnmesse's halls.

Attendees visiting Microsoft's Hall 7 Gamescom booth in person will find 50 games from Xbox Game Studios, Blizzard, Bethesda, and third-party partners, playable across 240 gaming stations. These include Age of Mythology: Retold, Ara: History Untold, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, Fallout 76: Milepost Zero, The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road, and Towerborne.

Playable third-party games, meanwhile, include Star Wars Outlaws, Space Marine 2, and the long-awaited Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl. A full list of games at the booth can be found here.

Read more

Nejnovější podpora pro hrdinskou střílečku dokáže zrychlit spojence, plachtit vzduchem a vyvolat orbitální paprsek pro zvýšení poškození.

Společnost Blizzard Entertainment odhalila dalšího podpůrného hrdinu do hry Overwatch 2 – Juno, dříve kódově označovanou jako Space Ranger. Využívá Mediblaster, který dokáže léčit spojence a poškozovat nepřátele dávkovou palbou, a bude k dispozici 20. srpna v rámci 12. sezóny. Níže se podívejte na její první gameplay.

Stejně jako hrdiny jako Mauga a Venture si ji hráči mohou vyzkoušet předčasně od 19. do 21. července. Spolu se svým Mediblasterem může Juno používat pulzní torpéda, kterými se zaměřuje na nepřátele a spojence a poškozuje je, zatímco druhé léčí.

Hyper Ring zvyšuje rychlost spojenců, kteří jím projdou, zatímco Orbitální paprsek, její ultimátka, zvyšuje poškození proti nepřátelům a obnovuje zdraví přátelům. Kromě toho všeho může Juno také využít funkci Glide Boost, díky níž se dostane do vzduchu a pomalu klesá.

12. sezóna by také měla obsahovat nový Premium Battle Pass a Mythic Skin, potenciální příchod nového základního režimu Clash a další novinky. Zůstaňte naladěni na další podrobnosti.

Článek Dalším hrdinou Overwatch 2 je Juno, dorazí 20. srpna se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.

Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller has posted a lengthy blog on Steam about the transition from 6v6 player matches in the first Overwatch to 5v5 in the poorly received free-to-play sequel. It's a juicy read for armchair designers and lapsed Overwatchers like myself, packing in analysis of class roles and the shift from the free choice of heroes to single hero picks and enforced team compositions.

In broad strokes, Keller summarises how the Overwatch experience has drifted away from "player freedom and creativity in order to create a more balanced, consistent and competitive experience for players". It's possible, however, that Overwatch 2 will swing back in the other direction, as Blizzard are now "exploring how we can test different forms of 6v6 in the game to gauge the results", with a view to restoring some of the joyful chaos that saw entire teams of Reinhardts charging the objective in formation.

Read more

Yet again, some good food. Following the news earlier this week that 241 Bethesda Games Studios staffers had formed what was at the time the biggest wall-to-wall under Microsoft, The Verge reports that over 500 World Of Warcraft developers have voted to form their own union, alongside the Communication Workers of America (CWA).

Read more

Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller has posted a lengthy blog on Steam about the transition from 6v6 player matches in the first Overwatch to 5v5 in the poorly received free-to-play sequel. It's a juicy read for armchair designers and lapsed Overwatchers like myself, packing in analysis of class roles and the shift from the free choice of heroes to single hero picks and enforced team compositions.

In broad strokes, Keller summarises how the Overwatch experience has drifted away from "player freedom and creativity in order to create a more balanced, consistent and competitive experience for players". It's possible, however, that Overwatch 2 will swing back in the other direction, as Blizzard are now "exploring how we can test different forms of 6v6 in the game to gauge the results", with a view to restoring some of the joyful chaos that saw entire teams of Reinhardts charging the objective in formation.

Read more

Yet again, some good food. Following the news earlier this week that 241 Bethesda Games Studios staffers had formed what was at the time the biggest wall-to-wall under Microsoft, The Verge reports that over 500 World Of Warcraft developers have voted to form their own union, alongside the Communication Workers of America (CWA).

Read more

Diablo 4's Season 5 will introduce a new wave-based rogue-lite mode.

By using an Infernal Compass – which scales in difficulty and world tier – players will be able to unlock the Infernal Hordes mode wherein they'll earn Burning Aether "to unlock powerful weapons and rewards".

Successfully slay the Hordes, and you'll be asked to take on the powerful Fell Council, which consists of three random minibosses. Successfully defeat them, and you'll be able to spend your Burning Aether on "Spoils of Hell" – Spoils of Equipment, Materials, Gold, or Greater Equipment – which guarantees an item with a Greater Affix.

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Every Overwatch 2 player has opinions about balance changes and reworks for their favorite heroes. Sometimes they’re impractical power fantasies to make their main more powerful, but other times, there are some real thoughtful ideas floating around forums and social media. Blizzard gave a handful of creators a chance…

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„ČASTO JSME MLUVILI O TOM, ŽE BY BYLO SKVĚLÉ, KDYBYCH HRÁL WRATH OF THE LICH KING A NA KONCI SÁM PORAZIL ARTHASE!“

Microsoft and Blizzard have slapped a release date on Diablo 4's forthcoming content-o-season Vessel Of Hatred. It's out 8th October 2024, and sees you hooting and hollering down the road to the new region of Nahantu in search of Neyrelle, a character "who is both suffering the fate of her choice to imprison the Prime Evil Mephisto, and seeking a means to destroy him". In the process, you may choose to become "the apex predator of the jungle as the all-new Spiritborn class". You can also recruit mercenaries to help you, fight alongside other players in a new PvE co-op activity, "and more".

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and if you want to read more, you can - you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

Which was the first game to have a dash move in it? The earliest I can think of is the Mega Man series. But was that a slide or a dash? Because although they serve similar functions, I think they're distinct things. It's tricky! Today of course, dashes are synonymous with action games, and even other kinds of games, and it's probably more common to play games with them than without them. Dashes have become a fundamental part of our gaming lexicon. But the question is, which dashes have been the most memorable - which dashes are the best?

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Blizzard is removing the Hero Mastery Gauntles PvE mode from Overwatch three months after it launched as "it hasn't resonated with players".

The mode will no longer be available to play from Season 11 on 18th June, after it launched in March this year.

Players therefore have until then, during Season 10, to complete the Lifetime Challenges for the mode and compete on its Top 500 leaderboards.

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Today I learned Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert is working on a new game, which he describes as "Classic Zelda meets Diablo meets Thimbleweed Park". Well, hello there!

Work on this project actually started several months ago, but it only came to my attention this afternoon thanks to TimeExtension. I have since done more browsing, and come across some posts on Terrible Toybox, as well as Gilbert's own Mastodon page.

Now, admittedly there still isn't a huge amount of information on Gilbert's upcoming project at this time. The game doesn't even have a proper name yet, and rather has been labelled as Game Name TBD on Terrible Toybox's website. Meanwhile, Gilbert has been using the hashtag #rpgtbd to tag his social media posts.

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Diablo 4's fourth season of post-launch content, Loot Reborn, arrives on 14th May and promises to be the dungeon-crawler's "biggest gameplay update yet".

As per Blizzard's lengthy announcement, Season 4: Loot Reborn is a little different to previous seasons; as well as delivering the expected limited-time seasonal content, it permanently overhauls "many core game systems" across both the Seasonal and Eternal Realms.

Itemisation is a particular focus, with Blizzard introducing changes to the way items "are earned, how they function, and how they improve" as players level through World Tiers during a season. "Dropped items are now simpler to evaluate," it explains "and we've moved their complexity and customisation to our new crafting systems, Tempering and Masterworking."

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Diablo IV is getting a major overhaul on the heels of its one year anniversary. Blizzard recently revealed almost every major change to come in season 4 later this month, and fans are excited for the action-RPG to finally fix some of the biggest complaints players have had since launch.

Read more...

Mayors in RPG games are rarely given the spotlight. They're mostly just there to give you an early quest involving goat banditry or windmill rats or some such other domestic drudgery. Or, in the case of Tristram’s mayor in Diablo, to fret behind the scenes about how to properly fit considerable cathedral repairs into this month’s budget. Well, no more must this valuable civil servant hide behind balance sheets, occasionally popping out to cut a big ribbon in celebration of a nearby mausoleum being turned into a Wetherspoons. Tristam is a 72 hour Ludum Dare project where you play as said town’s mayor. And this time: It’s ceremonial!

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This year, World of Warcraft will get its 10th expansion, the War Within, which as an occurrence is nothing particularly remarkable - there have, after all, been nine of them before. This time though, things seem slightly different. There's an air of change around Blizzard, at least as far as World of Warcraft operations go. It's personified by executive producer and vice president for World of Warcraft, Holly Longdale, who joined the WoW team in 2020 (from EverQuest) and stepped into the EP role about two years ago. She talks - in a presentation at a WoW War Within event in London - about the team trying, for about a year-and-a-half, to be more transparent and share development more openly with the community, then elicit feedback more readily from them. And though team-leaders tend to say things like this, there does seem to be some evidence to back it up. Look on the World of Warcraft website: there's a string of in-development posts about War Within that reveal considerable information about it - there don't seem to be cards held close to chests. There are also posts detailing recent experimental ideas like battle royale mode Plunderstorm, which came out of nowhere, and the equally unexpected new Remix idea, which supercharges an entire previous expansion's content - in this case Mists of Pandaria's - for a speedy recap levelling experience. It sounds like a great idea.

Things have needed to change. World of Warcraft has never faced more competition - not only from other MMOs like Final Fantasy 14, but also from games that might as well be labelled MMOs, such as Fortnite. Whether or not World of Warcraft still rules the roost, I don't know, because Blizzard won't talk numbers, which in itself is probably telling. More importantly, Blizzard has had to weather some ferocious storms. There was the lawsuit that alleged sexual discrimination at the company, which although it was settled last year for multiple-millions, has caused considerable harm. There was also, at the same time, the whole will-they won't-they saga of the Microsoft Activision Blizzard buyout, which has now finally gone through and will bring changes of its own, such as Microsoft-enforced layoffs announced earlier this year.

It's against that backdrop Blizzard tries to answer the not inconsiderable question of how to make a 20-year-old game still feel relevant today. It's a remarkable innings, and it staggers me to think of how many millions of people and lives World of Warcraft has touched during it, but how do you bring those people back? Partially, some of the answer seems to be to go big. The War Within, unlike any previous WoW expansion, will belong to a trilogy - the Worldsoul Saga - which will build and build in scope until we're facing those legendary titans we always hear so much about from the game's foundational lore. Expansions two and three - Midnight, and The Last Titan, respectively - are already in development, and should combine to deliver the most ambitious connected storyline the game has ever seen.

Read more

In the autumn of last year, Holly Longdale, the executive producer and vice president of World of Warcraft, made headlines by saying the team talks about putting WoW on console "all the time". It's a question the company has been asked repeatedly over the game's near 20-year lifetime, and it's an answer we've heard before, but it gained new momentum in light of Microsoft's recently completed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. When better to bring the game to Xbox than now?

I had a chance to put the question to Holly Longdale again at a World of Warcraft: The War Within expansion event in London this week. Should people finally get their hopes up?

"I mean..." Longdale began, cagily.

Read more

World of Warcraft will, in its 20th year of operation, implement an arachnophobia mode. It's been developed for the new War Within expansion, which heavily features the spider-like Nerubian race, but it won't be exclusive to it.

"We made it retroactive so it does everything," associate design director Maria Hamilton told me during a roundtable interview during a War Within event in London earlier this week. That means you'll be able to turn it on and off and spiders all over the World of Warcraft world will be transformed into something else - specifically, crabs.

It works very well; I was able to test it during an alpha playthrough of some early War Within content. The enemy models change seamlessly, and because crabs are not too dissimilar to spiders, the transformation doesn't erase a sense of what you're fighting. They look, if you squint, vaguely the same. More importantly, as Maria Hamilton explained to me, the crabs share the same hitboxes as the spiders, so positioning and reading attack animations is all pretty much the same.

Read more

This year, World of Warcraft will get its 10th expansion, the War Within, which as an occurrence is nothing particularly remarkable - there have, after all, been nine of them before. This time though, things seem slightly different. There's an air of change around Blizzard, at least as far as World of Warcraft operations go. It's personified by executive producer and vice president for World of Warcraft, Holly Longdale, who joined the WoW team in 2020 (from EverQuest) and stepped into the EP role about two years ago. She talks - in a presentation at a WoW War Within event in London - about the team trying, for about a year-and-a-half, to be more transparent and share development more openly with the community, then elicit feedback more readily from them. And though team-leaders tend to say things like this, there does seem to be some evidence to back it up. Look on the World of Warcraft website: there's a string of in-development posts about War Within that reveal considerable information about it - there don't seem to be cards held close to chests. There are also posts detailing recent experimental ideas like battle royale mode Plunderstorm, which came out of nowhere, and the equally unexpected new Remix idea, which supercharges an entire previous expansion's content - in this case Mists of Pandaria's - for a speedy recap levelling experience. It sounds like a great idea.

Things have needed to change. World of Warcraft has never faced more competition - not only from other MMOs like Final Fantasy 14, but also from games that might as well be labelled MMOs, such as Fortnite. Whether or not World of Warcraft still rules the roost, I don't know, because Blizzard won't talk numbers, which in itself is probably telling. More importantly, Blizzard has had to weather some ferocious storms. There was the lawsuit that alleged sexual discrimination at the company, which although it was settled last year for multiple-millions, has caused considerable harm. There was also, at the same time, the whole will-they won't-they saga of the Microsoft Activision Blizzard buyout, which has now finally gone through and will bring changes of its own, such as Microsoft-enforced layoffs announced earlier this year.

It's against that backdrop Blizzard tries to answer the not inconsiderable question of how to make a 20-year-old game still feel relevant today. It's a remarkable innings, and it staggers me to think of how many millions of people and lives World of Warcraft has touched during it, but how do you bring those people back? Partially, some of the answer seems to be to go big. The War Within, unlike any previous WoW expansion, will belong to a trilogy - the Worldsoul Saga - which will build and build in scope until we're facing those legendary titans we always hear so much about from the game's foundational lore. Expansions two and three - Midnight, and The Last Titan, respectively - are already in development, and should combine to deliver the most ambitious connected storyline the game has ever seen.

Read more

In the autumn of last year, Holly Longdale, the executive producer and vice president of World of Warcraft, made headlines by saying the team talks about putting WoW on console "all the time". It's a question the company has been asked repeatedly over the game's near 20-year lifetime, and it's an answer we've heard before, but it gained new momentum in light of Microsoft's recently completed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. When better to bring the game to Xbox than now?

I had a chance to put the question to Holly Longdale again at a World of Warcraft: The War Within expansion event in London this week. Should people finally get their hopes up?

"I mean..." Longdale began, cagily.

Read more

World of Warcraft will, in its 20th year of operation, implement an arachnophobia mode. It's been developed for the new War Within expansion, which heavily features the spider-like Nerubian race, but it won't be exclusive to it.

"We made it retroactive so it does everything," associate design director Maria Hamilton told me during a roundtable interview during a War Within event in London earlier this week. That means you'll be able to turn it on and off and spiders all over the World of Warcraft world will be transformed into something else - specifically, crabs.

It works very well; I was able to test it during an alpha playthrough of some early War Within content. The enemy models change seamlessly, and because crabs are not too dissimilar to spiders, the transformation doesn't erase a sense of what you're fighting. They look, if you squint, vaguely the same. More importantly, as Maria Hamilton explained to me, the crabs share the same hitboxes as the spiders, so positioning and reading attack animations is all pretty much the same.

Read more

If you've been itching to dive into World of Warcraft's new subterranean expansion The War Within, there's an opportunity to do so ahead of release, with beta testing sign-ups now open.

The War Within, which was announced during last year's BlizzCon, marks the first instalment in World of Warcraft's new three-part Worldsoul Saga, which is set to play out across the next few years. The War Within, specifically, takes players deep into heart of Azeroth, where they'll explore new subterranean kingdoms, engage with ancient cultures like the Earthen Dwarves - a new Allied race - and the terrifying Nerubians of Azj-Kahet.

Other announced new features include bite-sized experiences for 1-5 players known as Delves, Warbands - enabling players to share the likes of their bank and reputation among their alts - new dynamic flight for mounts, new dungeons and raids, Hero Talents, and more.

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World of Warcraft is setting a whole new story arc in motion with its next expansion, The War Within. If you can’t quite wait until this summer to see what the first chapter of the new Worldsoul Saga trilogy has to offer, you might not have to wait so long. Blizzard are running a beta for War Within that will give testers the chance to delve into the subterranean addition early - and sign-ups are now open.

Read more

Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and if you want to read more, you can - you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

I've always thought it strange that games should include fishing - games that aren't about fishing, that is. Take World of Warcraft as an example, a game that's included below: it's already a game that sucks away your time, so why would you want to do something even more time-consuming like fishing within it? Yet, fishing has definitely become a thing. There isn't a crafting game or an online game that goes by without fishing included. It's become a must-have. I only wish I had the patience for it. Do you?

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The trailer for Overwatch 2's Cowboy Bebop collaboration looks pretty good when judged in terms of style and costume design. It's even better when judged as it should be: by its music.

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Blizzard announced an Overwatch 2 Cowboy Bebop collaboration, which will feature new skins, emotes, and highlight intros for a variety of popular heroes in the game, including Cassidy, Ashe, Maura, Sombra, and Wrecking Ball. The upcoming collaboration is set to begin in on March 12, 2024 in the free-to-play game.

The Cowboy Bebop collaboration will feature paid and free skins based on the lead characters of the iconic anime series. For the paid skins, Cassidy will receive a Spike Spiegel skin, Ashe will receive a Fay Valentine skin, Mauga will receive a Jet Black skin, and Sombra will receive an Ed skin. Overwatch 2 players will be able to obtain Wrecking Ball's Ein skin for free by earning it in-game. Alongside the skins, players will also obtain special emotes and highlight intros based on Cowboy Bebop.

The Overwatch 2 x Cowboy Bebop collaboration trailer can be viewed below and shows off the upcoming skins while replicating the iconic opening to the anime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS480mqndzQ

Overwatch 2 previously had a special collaboration with One Punch Man in February 2023 during Overwatch 2's Season 3, featuring Doomfist as Saitama, Genji as Genos, Kiriko as Terrible Tornado, and Soldier 76 as Mumen Rider. Doomfist's Saitama skin, Genji's Genos skin, and Kiriko's Terrible Tornado skin were paid skins that could be obtained from the shop, while Soldier 76's Mumen Rider skin was free and could be earned by playing through the season. The One Punch Man collaboration was the first of its kind in Overwatch 2, which set the stage for future collaborations like the upcoming Cowboy Bebop collaboration starting next week.

Overwatch 2 is available to play for free on the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC. The Cowboy Bebop collaboration is set to begin on March 12, 2024.

The post Overwatch 2 Cowboy Bebop Collaboration Announced appeared first on Siliconera.