I still have an original PC copy of the 1996 action-RPG Diablo holding down the fort in my home office, but today it's a stark reminder of how much has changed in the 30 years since it came out. Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, who left the company in 2024, says the trend toward digital games is clearer than ever thanks to fresh data from Sony on PlayStation game sales, even if he wishes we could keep buying games on disc forever.

Reacting to PlayStation's Q1 FY26 results, which show 82% of the company's game sales are now digital, Ybarra says he's surprised discless games are dominating physical media to that extent. For reference, reputable games analyst Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners has said Xbox's digital ratio is over 90%, while Capcom is expecting 95% digital sales by next year.

"82% of games purchased are digital? Wow, that's very high. I recall when I was in the business, we passed by 50% which was a huge milestone," Ybarra shares.

"I wish physical media was here to stay, but the purchasing trend from consumers is clear. I really hope we see a digital promise of trust, transparency, and clarity soon (across all media!)."

That isn't the first time Ybarra has called for some sort of system to guarantee permanent ownership of a digital purchase, having previously expressed his desire for a "digital promise" to ensure gamers don't have to worry whether "games will work in the future or not," as well as a second-hand marketplace for people to sell and trade digital games.

Ybarra's outspoken and frequently controversial views on the industry aside, this pretty much sums up how most financially disinterested feel about the situation with PlayStation killing discs in 2028 and the industry's broader shift toward digital-only games. Calling back to my opener about Diablo on PC, it's worth noting that disc drives haven't been standard in mainstream gaming PCs for more than a decade.

Even if it means bad news for pretty much everyone, a largely discless future, in which physical games are reduced to novelties and limited releases, has seemed inevitable for a while. At least we know one high-profile games industry exec is mourning along with us when he isn't rage-baiting World of Warcraft players.

PlayStation ditching physical games is "a bridge across the bad years" of high hardware costs, analyst says, but it means "casuals and youngsters will drift off to mobile, PC, and free-to-play even faster"

The controversy around Mythic items has emerged as the defining issue of Diablo 4's fourteenth season, and Blizzard is back yet again with another foundational change to how the game's rarest loot works.

Diablo 4's Season of Death Awakening launched last month with a big compromise for players who were upset about the big Mythic rework previewed in the PTR. Instead of completely removing a Mythic Unique's special powers and leaving the item's identity up to the RNG gods, Blizzard made it so that a Mythic Unique will always drop with two guaranteed stats, with the other two being random. Well, it appears that wasn't enough to win over the Diablo 4 player base, as PTR 3.2.0, which will be available August 4 to 11, is doing away with Mythic RNG entirely.

"We've heard your feedback, and we're making further improvements to Mythic Uniques and Iconic Mythics," says Blizzard in a new breakdown of PTR 3.2.0. "Changes will make the system simpler, offering more crafting choices and giving you far more control over that one major piece you'll need to carry your build into the highest levels."

Unsurprisingly, Blizzard isn't completely reversing course on Mythics 3.0, meaning Mythic items are still a type of Unique rather than their own distinct category, but whereas previous changes made for items with 50% RNG, the new versions will be "far more deterministic," which is pretty much what players have been asking for this whole time.

The Horadric Cube will now have a new "Upgrade Direct" recipe that'll let you do exactly what it sounds like. Instead of the old upgrade recipe that spat out a completely random Mythic item of the same slot when you put in a Unique, which was causing lots of players to mistakenly trash some of their best items, this new and more "direct" recipe gives you the exact same item but of Mythic quality.

"As the name implies, this is a direct transfer to a Mythic state: the random factors are gone," confirms Blizzard. "Put in a Tibault's Will with ideal affixes and dialed-in Tempering and Masterworking, and you'll get a Mythic-ized version of that Tibault's Will with all affixes and modifications retained.

"The only restriction is that you cannot use this recipe on an Unmodifiable item, so beware of Transfiguring your precious Mythic Unique candidate!"

There is one more pretty crucial caveat here. Any Mythic created using the Cube will have a Crafted tag on it, and you'll only be able to equip one Crafted Mythic at a time. You can have as many Mythics equipped as you want so long as they're all made at the Jeweler, but just one Cube-crafted Mythic.

Hopefully, this latest change to Mythics is the one that satisfies Blizzard and the Diablo 4 community, as frankly, keeping track of what's what has become a full-time job for me. Although, I suppose the Diablo 4 Mythic beat isn't the worst career trajectory I could've thought of.

Diablo 4 lead says "there's often no ideal solution" when it comes to doing anything in the action-RPG: "Often, we just have to pick a thing"

A World of Warcraft game master has been fired from Blizzard Entertainment after the community caught them using "development-only spells" to help their friends breeze through a dungeon and instantly wipe two bosses. Essentially, they were caught helping some mates cheat.

The cheating scandal first came to light earlier this week when a couple of Reddit users shared evidence that a game master had used insta-kill abilities usually reserved for Blizzard employees to demolish at least two bosses. A player from the group all but spelled out the situation in a stream with Yumytv, too: "I go to my GM friend and I'm like bro please can you do me a solid? This thing has 20 million [health] bro, can you please just one-shot it?"

Things sort of escalated from there, with the community wondering how commonplace incidents like this were. "Now you know it exists, therefore the pandora's box is wide open," one Redditor writes. "Which make you question a lot of stuff." Were secret GMs all around, helping their pals achieve titles and record runs?

As PC Gamer reports, Blizzard has now investigated the incident, fired the employee responsible, and assured folks that GMs aren't regularly manipulating games in secret.

"As we mentioned, we internally monitored and confirmed a recent incident in which a World of Warcraft group gained an unfair advantage by abuse of access to development-only spells on a live realm," community manager Randy 'Kaivax' Jordan writes in a recent forum post. "Our tools confirmed what was also surfaced in community discussions, and we have investigated the incident carefully. We can confirm that this was the action of a single Blizzard employee, in violation of our Code of Conduct. This employee is no longer with the company effective immediately. We are also taking action against the player accounts that were complicit in this violation.

"It has always been the case that a small number of Blizzard employees can use developer tools and spells on live servers: this lets us test and make urgent fixes to the live game when they’re needed," Kaivax explains. "Every use of these internal spells and commands on live realms is logged and shared with our Platform Security team to help ensure that the occasional use of this access is warranted. The use of development tools for anything other than development work is against company policy. It's because of the process we have in place around use of these tools that we're confident this incident was isolated to one individual."

The community manager than thanks everyone who brought the information to light, alongside community-led sites. "When your findings line up with ours, it helps confirm that our own tools are catching what they should, and we're grateful for the way we work alongside you all to protect the game and each other."

"You'll never get another World of Warcraft or Morrowind in the current climate," id Software producer says as constant layoffs batter the industry.

The One Ring in The Lord of the Rings is generally bad for you. Besides attracting Sauron's attention, the dark magic imbued inside doesn't yield many positive side effects. A particular piece of jewelry in Diablo 4 is garnering a similar reputation, since players are finding it causes them to die unexpectedly.

According to its stats, the Wendigo Brand is meant to make you more powerful the more kills you get. Specifically, getting 15 kills within 50 seconds makes you tougher and increases your life. What's not included is that wearing it could cause you to suddenly and inexplicably drop dead.

That's what fans across the community are reporting, anyway. Threads across Reddit, dating back months, have players saying their health is depleting rapidly after partaking in encounters wearing the ring.

One ring to rule them all. This ring will make you go crazy and eventually will kill you. from r/Diablo

This has led to people losing battles they really should be winning while grinding in the action-RPG. "One ring to rule them all," reads a Reddit thread. "This ring will make you go crazy and eventually will kill you."

The comments contain several more anecdotal reports of the equipment harming their progress. "Removed it from my build and random deaths just stopped," says the top commenter. What's happening, according to those who've experienced it, is that when you reach 50 stacks on the health effect, it starts draining your life instead.

Whatever's going on, it isn't good, and claims that it's a bug have been substantiated to an extent by Blizzard itself, as the developer is now investigating. "Thank you all for the reports, team is looking into this," Marcus 'Marcoose' Kretz, senior community manager on the Diablo games, said on the official forums.

I implore them to proceed with caution. We all saw what happened to Gollum. And Isildur. And Boromir. And Frodo himself. Patch it out quickly and effectively.

Diablo 4 hotfix makes it easier to farm Mythics as Blizzard confirms Season 15 will remove Mythic reroll crafting from the Horadric Cube, "adding a direct upgrade" instead

A World of Warcraft game master has been accused of helping a Twitch streamer's Mythic group cheat a high-level dungeon by using their GM powers to insta-kill an enemy, and Blizzard says it's actively investigating the situation as evidence piles up.

This began with a July 21 Reddit post from user Acrobatic_Pianist688, who claimed to have seen a "Blizzard GM death touching mobs in M+23 for their favorite streamer." Of course, we don't actually know if anyone's "favorite" streamer was involved, but Acrobatic_Pianist did link to a Warcraft Log record showing an abrupt end to a Mythic+23 fight in the Nexus-Point Xenas dungeon, caused by an "instakill" and "Area Death (TEST)" effect from user Daijosai, believed to be the GM in question.

Game masters are Blizzard employees with World of Warcraft privileges and permissions that enable them to resolve in-game disputes and support requests.

The incident caught fire online, and chatter only intensified after this Warcraft log was highlighted in a stream from WoW content creator yumytv during a conversation with Yiesus, a small Twitch streamer and one of the apparent teammates in this dungeon run, who's described by yumy as "witness testimony."

The moment was clipped and shared, the Twitch chat filled with accusations of "cheater," after Yiesus openly said, "I go to my GM friend, I'm like, bro, please can you do me a solid? This thing has 20 mil bro, can you please just one-shot? One time for the one time. I meant no harm from it. If Blizzard wants to revoke that key or revoke my title, whatever they see fit, I don't care. Personally, I think it was harmless. I didn't expect him to do it. In hindsight he shouldn't have done it. He was just doing me a solid."

One of the other streamers in this dungeon run, YaraByte, shared the same clip on her Twitter.

This mess quickly reached the official Blizzard forums, with players calling for the GM to be punished and the clear to be revoked, prompting a response from Blizzard. Late Tuesday night, community manager Randy 'Kaivax' Jordan replied, both in the forum thread and to the original Reddit post.

"Thank you to those who flagged this," Jordan says. "We are reviewing and will take action as appropriate. A fair and competitive playing field is essential to our games, and we won’t tolerate cheating."

Blizzard continues taking action against World of Warcraft private servers as it pushes on with a lawsuit citing "large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement" of its MMO.

The latest Diablo 4 Season 14 patch is now available, and once again, it's tweaking drop rates for Mythics and making them easier to get in general. This has been a running theme since Season of Death Awakening kicked off at the end of June, though the current changes should help alleviate lingering frustrations.

In Undercity, you now have a much better chance of getting a Mythic from the Mythic Tribute of Armaments. If you're Torment X, the odds are "greatly increased," while for Torment XII, they're now totally guaranteed. Those are more forgiving numbers all around.

On top of this, Superior Lair Keys are now part of the last Glints of Hope cache, creating a way to farm them. This will make getting more Mythics easier in general, in terms of gathering Pandemonium Fragments and for finding the items after a big encounter.

These efforts are part of an ongoing clean up from Blizzard since Season 14 turned the hunt for Unique Mythics into a complete disaster. Drop rates are practically non-existent in some cases, as multiple players and streamers found that they couldn't find any Uniques despite playing for hours-long sessions.

Then, a limitation of only being able to carry one crafted Mythic made building characters a headache. The devs have been progressively dismantling and reworking these hurdles, but as always, changes need to be methodical and gradual, lest they over-correct and create issues going the other way.

More changes are already hallmarked for Season 15's Horadric Cube, too. "We're removing Mythic reroll crafting and adding a direct upgrade to Mythic that preserves the original unique item," Marcus 'Marcoose' Kretz, senior community manager on the Diablo series, says in a developer's note referenced by YouTuber Cliptis. "We'll evaluate bringing back this rule for that specific crafting path only."

As it stands, upgrading to Mythic gives you a random item of that class in return – it doesn't guarantee what you're upgrading is what you'll get. Cliptis adds that he believes if Blizzard does this, the rule of only allowing one crafted Mythic will come back, but that's just conjecture at the minute.

The team would be hard pushed to make matters worse than high-level players not finding particular treasure whatsoever, but I digress. This hotfix, and others that are no doubt in the pipeline, should make people's lives in the underworld a little better. For now, anyway.

Diablo 4 players are accidentally trashing their best items due to an "objectively misleading" recipe, and it's the best argument I've seen for yellow paint in games.

Being the second-biggest game in any given corner of the medium is nothing to sniff at. It's a competitive industry, and having enough players to stay afloat is a luxury many never manage. RuneScape studio Jagex isn't exactly dissatisfied with silver medals at the minute, but the aspiration is to take the top spot someday.

The studio's CEO, Jon Bellamy, made as much extremely clear to The Game Business. "The dream is that we're not the number two biggest MMO brand in the world, we’re number one," he says.

"There's a big old gap between us and number one," he continues. "But if we get it right, we know we can make headway."

The top spot belongs to World of Warcraft, still the definitive MMORPG. We could split hairs for hours over what constitutes an MMO here and by what values we're ranking them (Final Fantasy 14 players would surely like a word), but RuneScape and WoW are both online fantasy RPGs, making them fairly direct competition even if they play very differently.

RuneScape's got a strong foothold at this point, since the original version predates our first quests around Azeroth by a few years. However, World of Warcraft's been impossible to overtake since soon after launch, with greater production values than practically anything else available at the time, and a business model that toed the line between affordable and sustainable.

But Jagex has hung in there over the last 25 years, providing a worthy alternative to anyone who doesn't enjoy WoW or sickos who want another grind on their second monitor. Bellamy knows how it sounds having the giant in his sights, but argues, what's the point of goals if they don't scare you a little?

"It's lofty and ambitious, but if you're going to set lofty and ambitious goals, why not swing for the top?" he adds. "So, that's the number one goal."

Honestly, I wouldn't count out the classic MMO. RuneScape's maintained relevance without abandoning the aesthetic and (very literal) old-school ideas that made it what it is. We'll see what the next decade has to offer.

RuneScape creators asked their mom to help design the MMO's first enemies: "Only much later did they even consider actually hiring people"

The latest Heroes of the Storm patch is here, adding a new map to Ranked, giving multiple characters a nice little rebalance, making some quality-of-life changes. However, the wackiest thing to many onlookers is the fact the game's still being looked after at all.

Right up top on the patch notes, is the reveal that Haunted Mines is now part of Ranked play. A good one for anyone who enjoys all things spooky; the Grave Keeper is the announcer, which is always fun.

Lucio gets a new skin, called Ruby Chromestesia, and the music for the homescreen and startup has been updated. Then there's a slew of nerfs and buffs across the MOBA's roster.

Abathur's Locust Strain has had its health taken down from 350 down to 225, and the Locust's base damage has been reduced to 36 from 58. But on the flip side, Locusts now do a 100% bonus hit on non-Heroes, which will surely come in handy.

Further down the list, Diablo's Shadow Charge has been buffed to inflict 45 damage instead of 40, and their overpower is similarly powered up to do 80 instead of 73. These are just a few examples of what's a long list of changes from the team, and you'd think they'd give people pause, but the replies on Twitter are merely fascinated by the fact a new patch is out at all.

"Wasn't this game shut down?" one account asks. "When did this come back?" another says. "Not trying to be funny, but I honestly remember reading it was closed down," a third reply says.

What they're referring to, I imagine, is Blizzard deciding to stop making new additions to the MOBA back in 2022. However, support was always going to continue, and monthly updates have been happening ever since.

I'm not sure what it is about this one that's attracted all the attention, but if it encourages anyone to boot the game back up, then it's a good thing. Go give Haunted Mines a look, I bet it's fun!

Final Fantasy 14's Third Walk raid starts with FF11's most infamous boss being bodied in a cutscene because a raid designer wanted to show off the true strength of your first foe

Another day, another Diablo 4 stir-up. This time, however, I'm not sure how much blame can be reasonably placed on developer Blizzard, as a big part of the issue stems from some very important – and not even very fine – print that's just not being read.

I'm always cautious to throw up a shield around Blizzard when disgruntled Diablo 4 players come a-knockin', but in this case, the root of the controversy can be pretty evenly divvied up between legitimately confusing precedent set by another crafting recipe, and also gamers' unwillingness to read onscreen text.

See, Diablo 4's season 14, which hasn't been going down well at all, introduced a new crafting recipe for the Horadric Cube. It's called Upgrade to Mythic, which at face value would make you think it's a way to take a Unique and make it a Mythic item with all of the same properties and one additional Mythic power. After all, the pre-existing Upgrade to Legendary path does exactly that, but at the Legendary tier. But no, the Upgrade to Mythic recipe takes your Unique and gives you back a random Mythic item of the same type. So your Unique dagger is going to come out a Mythic dagger, but here's the rub: it won't necessarily be the same dagger that went into the Cube, and in all likelihood, it will be a completely different item with its own stats.

The tooltip for the recipe reads verbatim: "Transmutes a Unique equipment item with at least 850 Item Power into a random Mythic of the same item slot," which is pretty darn unambiguous. That said, I can understand that the Upgrade to Legendary recipe being what it is can cause some confusion. It's just that, still, at the end of the day, simply reading that recipe description even just once would completely eliminate any doubt about what the crafting tool is going to do.

Still, "Diablo 4 Players Keep Destroying Valuable Items Because of One Misleading Recipe," reads a recent headline from Icy Veins. "Guilty," reads the top comment on a Reddit thread discussing the article. "I lost a really good dagger because I thought I was 'upgrading.'"

"Me too. I logged off for a few days afterwards," says another commenter.

"Same lol," says another.

"Yup me too," says another. And so on.

Again, I'm not saying Blizzard is completely blameless here. It is undeniably weird that the Upgrade to Mythic recipe destroys the input item and gives you something completely random when the Upgrade to Legendary recipe gives you the same item but Legendary, but I also can't help but think this whole mess is a pretty compelling argument for the infamous yellow paint that's often used as a visual cue to guide players toward their goal. In this case, it's not about reading between the lines – it's literally about reading the lines.

On the bright side: New Diablo 4 hotfix finally increases Mythic drop rates and removes limits on equipping them as Blizzard admits "not every idea lands exactly as intended."

There's been a new patch for StarCraft 2 from Blizzard, and you might think after 16 years there isn't much the studio can do to truly disrupt the game or its community. Well, you'd be wrong, because a tweak in the latest update is sending shockwave through the player base right now.

The alterations listed are based around both Proton and Terran against Zerg, and there aren't all that many. "We are making changes based on player data and feedback," writes Blizzard in the intro. And right at the top of the Terran list is the biggie: Command Centers now cost 300 minerals instead of 400.

This is rather significant, because it's the main strategic hub of the Terran forces, presenting quite a lot of strategic value for a comparatively low price. The immediate comparison is to Supply Depots, which are 100 minerals, because although Command Centers are still three times more, you get 15 supply. Building one much earlier in a round is a no-brainer, and you can make a bunch of them later with considerable ease.

"This is the most impactful change that we've had in StarCraft 2 since Legacy of the Void," StarCraft 2 YouTuber Harstem says in a video going through the patch. "This is such an insanely big buff to Terran."

To him, this will impact the early, middle and late stages of any confrontation, because of how it subsumes Supply Depots as a choice now. He echoes the sentiments of many fans. "Might be a way to fix Terran early game economy but ultra late game will be even more broken," one Redditor observes.

"Holy [fuck] what are they doing in Anaheim," another incredulously asks. "I feel like this was an accident," a third commenter on Reddit says.

This is very much the kind of change that gets tempered post-rollout, because it's either an error, or the impact is greater than the devs anticipated. One player tells the community to make use of it while it's available. "That shit is 100% getting reverted. Gotta abuse it while you can!" they exclaim. I don't think they're wrong.

StarCraft 2 devs take another swing at getting the RTS game's surprise new update right, but Blizzard still hasn't rolled back the one change fans most want undone.

After almost three weeks of community outcry, Blizzard is modifying the drop rates for Mythics in Diablo 4 Season 14. Players had been finding it tough to get Unique Mythics, to the point where many couldn't find any despite farming specifically for them, and now hotfixes are being rolled out to take the edge off.

"We've heard your feedback on Season of Death Awakening, including Mythic unique drop rates, equip limits, and more," Dan Tanguay, the design director of live service for Diablo 4, says on the official Blizzard forums, as relayed by Marcus 'Marcoose' Kretz, senior community manager for the Diablo series.

"In a patch releasing today, we're increasing the drop rate for Mythics from the Corrupted Reaper boss fight and removing equip limits for Mythic Uniques," he writes. "Additionally, in a patch coming next week, we're adding Superior Lair Keys to the Glints of Hope repeatable cache and increasing the Mythic Tribute drop rates in the Undercity."

How much the drop rate for the Corrupted Reaper battle increases will need to be tested, but seeing as numerous players have gotten exactly zero uniques from that encounter, things can really only go up. Letting people equip more than one is helpful as well – you can only have one crafted Mythic at a time currently, significantly reducing the options for any given build.

His post was made on July 16, yesterday at time of writing, meaning it should be live and available to you whenever you boot up Diablo 4 next. A fan on Reddit amusingly told others they can now "re-install Diablo 4," since a few had commented they were ostensibly avoiding this season due to what was happening with Mythics.

The second patch Tanguay mentioned should massage out further problems, too. "Seasons are where we experiment with new ideas and push Diablo 4 in new directions," he finishes. "Not every idea lands exactly as intended, but we’ll continue listening to your feedback, addressing what’s not working, and applying those lessons to future seasonal updates."

Diablo 4's Overwatch crossover skins have been revealed and they are completely cursed: "Mercy looks like a 90-year-old grandma."

The Iconic Mythics saga in Diablo 4 just won't end, and as Blizzard continues to step on rakes to the wide ridicule of the game's most hardcore fans, the devs have announced that they're looking into how to escape the rake field they now seem to permanently reside in. In less hyperbolic terms – yes, they know Iconic Mythics aren't dropping, and yes, they're trying to figure out a solution.

A recent update was meant to actually get Iconic Mythics dropping again, as the patch notes promised that Blizzard had "increased the chance of naturally dropped Mythics being an Iconic Mythic." By all accounts, however, they're still effectively impossible to farm.

"Clearly the patch failed," as one irate post on the official message board put it. "Iconic mythics were supposed to start dropping. Now the community has collectively wasted millions of lair keys for no chance at iconic mythics still. Remove the crafted tag from AT LEAST the iconic mythics at blacksmith. They got nerfed with patch anyway. I just wasted 70 Lair keys on Grigoire for ZERO mythics of ANY kind."

In response to that message, a Blizzard community manager promises that "this is being looked into, as well as other issues surrounding mythics." The CM has, in fact, repeated that sentiment several times in response to other, similar messages over the past few days. But if you're looking for concrete details about what's changing and when, the devs have not provided them just yet.

Outrage over the state of mythic items across the game has been ongoing since before Season 14 hit the PTR at the start of June, and while Blizzard has offered various olive branches to the community and implemented changes to the system, it seems that there's still work to be done.

Diablo 4 streamer spends "20 hours non-stop" farming bosses for the ARPG's rarest items, doesn't get a single one: "Don't try this at home."

Blizzard has announced that it's ending support for Overwatch's MOBA-inspired Stadium mode due to low player numbers.

In a new blog post, game director Aaron Keller breaks down the different Overwatch modes by the amount of players they're attracting, and well, it's easy to see why Blizzard has decided not to bother making new content for Stadium.

The main unranked 5v5 queue is unsurprisingly the most popular and accounts for 54% of daily players, while 34% of players up the stakes for ranked 5v5 queue. From there, 19% and 8% log in for unranked and ranked open queue 6v6, respectively, and just 4% are playing unranked mystery heroes 6v6. All the way at the bottom is poor old Stadium mode, whose ranked and unranked queues are seeing just 3% of the player base tune in.

Keller notes that there's overlap in the data accounting for players who play different modes in the same session, which is why the percentages don't add up to a perfect 100%, but the numbers don't lie: Stadium just isn't very popular.

"With this in mind, while we'll continue supporting Stadium with seasonal balance updates, rank resets, and rewards," says Keller. "We're not planning on expanding Stadium with new Heroes or maps. Instead, we're taking what lessons we've gleaned from building it and applying those lessons (and those talented devs) to our future plans."

In the same blog, Keller also announced two new experimental 6v6 modes that'll be tested in the back half of season 3. The new modes are aimed at finding "ways of making matches more dynamic in Role Queue, improving the tank experience, and removing some of the volatility of team fights while also removing some of the pain points that players have with our current formats.

The first test runs this week from July 16 through July 19 and turns Quick Play into a "Flex Queue" where each team will always have at least one tank, three flex damage dealers, and two supports. The rub is that, at any point in the match, one of the team's damage dealers will have the option to swap into the tank role with a different hero, which Keller hopes will reduce queue times, make for a "slightly more dynamic experience" than the regular 2-2-2 team makeup, and provide a "more consistent" experience than open queue.

"There are a few downsides to this format and the biggest is the potential social pressure for Damage dealers to play Tank," says Keller. "But if the burden is shared among 3 people with more freedom to play different Heroes, will it feel acceptable? We're hoping to find out!"

Another test will run from July 28 to August 3 and is being called "Dynamic Queue," featuring a "blend" of Flex Queue and Role Queue elements. This time around, whether team composition is decided by the Flex Queue rules depends on how many people queue up for Tank, which is Blizzard's "current bottleneck."

"Think of the shift into Flex Queue format as a 'release valve' for the 2-2-2 queue," Keller explains, adding that the upside here is that it'll often result in "what we anticipate will be the most preferred format, 2-2-2." The downside is that the loss of consistency could make matches feel less competitive, which is something Blizzard will be keeping tabs on.

As if eulogizing Stadium, Keller encourages players to engage in these more experimental modes. "Give them a chance and go into those queues with an open mind. The pace of fights and general vibe of these matches may seem very different. Spend time getting used to how they feel and see if your initial reactions change over the mode's duration," he says.

Overwatch escapes "Mostly Negative" Steam reviews 3 years after becoming the worst-rated game on Valve's store: "In 2026, we finally got back to just Overwatch"

There's a new Diablo 4 patch out, and while it addresses a couple of the latent problems in Season 14, the bigger issues surrounding Mythic Uniques remain. Specifically, their drop rate is far too minimal, and crafting them is still not worth the effort.

As usual, players have been quick to see what's been altered in the latest update, and what they've found is disconcerting. Prominent Diablo 4 streamer and YouTuber Rob2628 noted on Twitter that after a quick session beating the newer Reaper Bosss over and over for loot, he got plenty of Mythics, but none of what he's been looking for.

"Got 14 Mythics in 30 minutes but still no Iconics," he posted on Twitter. Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2 YouTuber wudijo did the same, and he had slightly different results. "Managed to get two Mythics from boss trophies," he says in a tweet. "They come with the 'CRAFTED' tag, though."

The problem here is that you can only equip one crafted Mythic at a time, another aspect that isn't sitting well within the community, because you can't stack them in your builds and it reduces the impetus to collect them. Another player delivered some dispiriting stats on Reddit.

"Out of a total of 830 boss chests, I got 38 Mythics in total but zero Iconic Mythics. I ran Grigoire, Butcher, and Reaper," they write. The drop rates vary between 2% and 14% depending on which one of these you're facing, and you'd think that'd ensure at least one Iconic across the bones of one thousand chests, but apparently not.

"Never regretted buying the add-ons more than right now," says another Redditor in the comments. "This season is a joke, a bad one," writes a second fan.

"I'm done with this shit. See you in S15 (or not, we will see)," adds another. "The fact that they are essentially doubling down on their decisions, by making the patch the way they did pisses me off. They just never learn, except if we quit and don’t buy the shit from the shop."

Blizzard did state this patch would remedy some critiques, but clearly more work needs to be done. At the very least, I'd expect those drops to get easier, because getting nothing doesn't do much for anyone.

Diablo 4 streamer spends "20 hours non-stop" farming bosses for the ARPG's rarest items, doesn't get a single one: "Don't try this at home"

World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 players can finally earn some cash by playing their beloved respective MMOs and put it towards a real-life degree – but it's not as easy as it may sound.

The University of Silicon Valley in California has quite an offer on the table for a few very lucky select students (10-15 annually, apparently) – the Max Achievement Scholarship, as the educational institution outlines on its official website.

If you've not heard of it before, it gives folks a chance to score up to $15,000 in scholarship money… but it's far simpler said than actually done. It isn't only a matter of playing games, you see.

As the university explains, "The Max Achievement Scholarship recognizes students who have demonstrated extraordinary mastery, persistence, and systems thinking through the completion of rare and demanding achievements in digital gaming environments."

Yes, that means that aspiring players need to get to grindin' in their game of choice. We're talking "ultra-rare accomplishments" for the "Legendary Tier" of awards.

Many of these, as the University of Silicon Valley describes, require "500+ hours of sustained mastery across complex systems (typically <1% global completion rate)." For example, World of Warcraft players need to have Loremaster unlocked, all 13 professions maxed, and 25+ Exalted reputations, plus the Keystone Master achievement.

As for Final Fantasy 14 players, the requirements are higher than the in-game requirements to become a Mentor.

I know, I know, those aren't exactly ridiculously high themselves – but the university's are. Players need all 20 combat jobs and eight crafter/gatherer jobs at level 100 (the game's max level), plus all role quests and "all 12 extreme trials cleared," although it's not specified which ones.

I'm assuming Dawntrail's trials… and then some? The bottom line is that this scholarship money isn't easily obtainable, regardless.

MMOs aren't the only games up for the cash, either – heck, there's everything from Minecraft to Dark Souls (good luck with that one). You can even apply as a general PC, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X|S gamer, but you'll need platinums and perfect games galore.

Put simply, there's no quick way to have a go at the Max Achievement Scholarship money. If you think you might qualify, though, the university is accepting submissions now.

Multiple achievements may be submitted, too – but "achievements earned via modded, private, or emulated servers are not eligible." So, if you're a World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14 (or insert another game name here) stan, shoot your shot.

Blizzard knows World of Warcraft's removal of raid add-ons is "controversial," but the MMO's lead says its new UI "has been successful so far"

Hopes were high that the latest Diablo 4 patch would address the problems around Mythics introduced in Season 14. Alas, this isn't the case, as the update, coming tomorrow, July 14, only addresses a sliver of the issues, leaving players hoping for more systemic change in the weeks to come.

Essentially, the new season, Death Awakening, made Mythic Uniques a general pain in the backside. Crafting them is trickier; the drop rate for the items as loot is staggeringly low, and even using them isn't as effective as it once was.

Blizzard made a small mess here, and despite allusions to fixing things in this patch, the most glaring problems remain unaddressed, per the patch notes. That said, the process of acquiring and using Fragments for crafting Mythics is becoming easier, which is a welcome alteration.

Prior to now, it took five Fragments to make a Mythic Unique in the Horadic Cube. That turned out to be a pretty high number for how rarely they actually appeared after an encounter. Now, Corrupted Reaper will drop two of them per Hoard Chest, and you can get four if you utilize the Lair of Plenty War Plan.

On top of this, you'll only need four Fragments to craft a Mythic Unique. These aren't the total systemic changes many players were hoping for, but they should relieve some of the tension while the devs look into fixing other aspects. Drop rates are rarely simple to fix, since an overcorrection in the other direction won't help the game.

The patch notes state a bug where some Lair Bosses weren't dropping Uniques like they should has been fixed too, which may help you find some if you've been trying and failing to build up your collection. The usual smattering of fixes and tweaks across various aspects is included otherwise.

Diablo 4 streamer spends "20 hours non-stop" farming bosses for the ARPG's rarest items, doesn't get a single one: "Don't try this at home"

It's supposed to be difficult to get a mythic drop in Diablo 4, but the latest season, Death Awakening, accidentally made it practically impossible. The Iconic Mythics are a unique treasure for experienced players, but after anecdotal research showed the drop rates are ludicrously low, Blizzard's doing some fine-tuning.

A patch is on the way that's going to respond to criticisms over season 14, according to information from the Diablo Partner Program. Specific details aren't given, but we can guess the update will fix a few known problems, such as all Mythic Uniques coming with the Crafted tag when gotten through the Horadic Cube, and the aforementioned chance of getting certain items in battle.

The latter's been tested specifically by Diablo YouTuber Wudijo, who spent hours grinding for an Iconic Mythic only to come away empty-handed after 20 hours. Seriously, he played for that long and didn't get a single one, suggesting the RNG here is off-kilter.

Annoying as is, because you want proper prizes for taking on the wretched hellspawn of Diablo 4's depths, this creates limitations for particular builds because certain staple pieces of equipment are now nigh unobtainable. It seems like a classic case of tuning the drop rate just a little too strongly for its own good, but we'll see what emerges in the patch notes.

This update is expected to roll out within the next week or so, making it around the middle of July. However, it's worth noting that Blizzard's parent company, Microsoft, has been making substantial changes across all its studios of late, including laying off hundreds of staff.

Expect release schedules to be at least a little up in the air for the time being. An internal memo suggested how this all impacts Blizzard would be revealed later, but don't be surprised if things take longer than usual at present.

Blizzard says fine, it'll "split the difference" with Diablo 4 players outraged over Mythics, keeps core changes intact to ensure the ARPG's "long-term health"

Diablo 4's new season, Death Awakening, kicked off on June 30 with some highly anticipated adjustments to the game's rarest loot, now called "Iconic" Mythics. The TLDR is that Mythic Uniques now come with two guaranteed powers that synergize with the item's unique abilities, replacing the completely random rolls that garnered so much controversy in the PTR, but even if Blizzard's compromise with players completely restored the community's goodwill (it didn't), it seems there's a whole new pain point emerging: drop rates.

According to one extremely thorough study from Diablo 4 content creator wudijo, Death Awakening's drop rates for Iconic Mythics are pretty darn stingy. In a new 20-minute video, wudijo says he spent "20 hours non-stop farming bosses" to bag himself some Iconic Mythics – in particular the El'Druin Sword of Justice – to no avail.

Wudijo spent most of two full real-world days farming Helltides, "not doing anything else in-between," and ended up with 850 lair keys, 900 greater lair keys, and 127 superior lair keys. Using those farming those bosses netted him a little over 100 Mythics, five Mythic Seals, and more than five billion gold, but unfortunately, not a single Iconic Mythic.

Even after salvaging "almost all" of the Mythics he looted at the blacksmith and trading them for Resplendent Sparks to make new items, "I just don't have that item, with all of my effort with all of the crafting, with all of the Sparks, and all of these lair bosses... so this is what happened here, and I am very sad," says wudijo.

Acknowledging that farming Helltides is an "extremely good" way to rack up regular Mythics and Mythic Seals, wudijo concludes that if you're looking for a specific Iconic Mythic, or really any Iconic, "this is definitely kind of disappointing."

It doesn't help that, in his experience, farming for a Mythic version of a Unique that otherwise fits your build often ends in disappointment.

"Most of the time you will have found so many good Uniques that, by the time that you have any realistic hope of getting the Mythic version, that the Mythic most often just ends up being worse, or at least not much of an upgrade in the first place," wudijo says.

As an example, wudijo says he found a particularly viable Unique Eaglehorn bow and wanted to see if he could find a better Mythic version for his Rogue build, but by the time a Mythic Eaglehorn actually dropped, it wasn't as good as the normal Unique one because "it rolled two bad stats," and since Diablo 4's reworked loot system only lets you re-roll one of a Mythic item's powers, his Mythic Eaglehorn went to the blacksmith for salvaging.

Wudijo is far from the only Diablo 4 player feeling unhappy with Iconic Mythic drop rates in season 14, with one heavily upvoted Reddit thread calling them "broken." Having fond memories spending entire summers as a kid chasing the rarest items in the games, I think there's value in having items so rare that they genuinely feel mythical when encountered, but at the same time, one of the new Diablo 4 season's biggest focuses is the Mythic rework, so it does seem peculiar that there's an item class eluding players as dedicated as wudijo, especially when Diablo seasons only last about three months. We'll see if and how Blizzard responds to the latest kerfuffle from the Diablo community.

Blizzard devs in the dark for now as president of the World of Warcraft and Diablo studio says they "can expect to hear more" soon about Microsoft's plan for the studio as Xbox faces 3,200 job cuts

Blizzard made waves in the World of Warcraft community after deciding to remove combat mods alongside the release of new expansion Midnight, but director Ion Hazzikostas remains certain that it was the right decision.

Speaking in a new interview with PCGamesN, Hazzikostas first reiterates that raid mechanics were never developed "with the intent that add-ons would be used to solve them." It's an issue that Final Fantasy 14 players will understand well, too – although Blizzard only recently took action against combat plug-ins.

Players were meant to overcome World of Warcraft's greater challenges more organically, hence the removal of such add-ons.

Even though fans themselves have offered a bit of a mixed bag of reactions to the entire debacle, Hazzikostas believes the UI changes accompanying the add-ons' departure have largely been a good thing.

"I know this may be a controversial statement, but I will say that, overall, [the new UI] has been successful so far," he says. "It's not done, it's not perfect; there's more work to go, and we are continuing to undertake that work."

But, Hazzikostas assures us, "By and large, the vast majority of people are completing the same level of content that they were before, and far more are doing it without feeling like they need to seek out external tools."

Blizzard isn't done yet – the devs are "continuing to improve our base interface" while also making things a bit easier for add-on authors. It's about striking a middle ground, not just scrapping everything players used to know.

And, as Blizzard has said time and time again, "All of this has been in service of a more approachable experience and a more level playing field."

Reactions didn't make that easy, as the whole "killing add-ons" rhetoric "led to a very understandable, very negative reaction around that idea because add-ons have been a part of WoW for 20 years." But, they still are – just not in the same way they used to be.

It's nothing like Square Enix's third-party tool policy that those of us invested in Eorzea know very well – and it's evolving.

"While it's certainly been a transition with its challenges, we're excited to have this new baseline and foundation, and things will only continue to get better from here, both as we continue to add functionality to the base UI, and we continue to empower addon authors to add customization options," as Hazzikostas states.

Ultimately, Blizzard wants "to open up new doors and possibilities for players in raids, dungeons, delves, and everything in between" – and that's what Midnight's changes (and future tweaks, too) aim to do.

Blizzard continues taking action against World of Warcraft private servers as it pushes on with a lawsuit citing "large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement" of its MMO

In the midst of a total upheaval at Xbox, Blizzard is handing over publishing duties for Overwatch in Korea to live-service juggernaut Nexon.

In a joint press release, Blizzard and Nexon announced a new Overwatch service for PC players in Korea, with registration and account linking available now ahead of the official August 12 migration, lining up with the start of Overwatch season 4.

"Registration is now open and excitement is growing for the August 12 start of Nexon's service of Overwatch on PC in Korea," says Nexon president and CEO Junghun Lee, in a press release. "The Nexon team has been working closely with Blizzard to provide a service that enhances the Overwatch experience through Nexon's best-in-class live operations and hyperlocalization."

While the events aren't explicitly linked, the timing of an Xbox-owned franchise shifting hands even regionally is peculiar in the wake of Microsoft's historic downsizing of its gaming division, which saw 1,600 jobs cut immediately and will ultimately result in 3,200 redundancies by the end of fiscal year 2027.

The restructuring also splits off at least four studios from the XGS umbrella, with Compulsion Games and Double Fine going independent and Ninja Theory and Undead Labs entering "terms to join new ownership." Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says the company is reviewing "potential strategic options" for Dishonored and Deathloop studio Arkane.

"Opening registration is an exciting step forward as we approach the August launch of Nexon's service for Overwatch on PC in Korea," says Blizzard's head of development on live games, Walter Kong. "Together with Nexon, we are proud of the high-quality, tailored experience we are building for players in Korea, and we are excited to usher in this new chapter for the Korean Overwatch community."

Over on the official sign-up page for Nexon's new Overwatch service, the publisher encourages players to complete their account linking early and "receive special rewards, including 20 Mythic Prisms, a new Legendary skin, and Loot Boxes."

It's unclear if this will effectively region-lock Overwatch players in Korea, but the mention of hyperlocalized content and the mandatory Nexon account-linking seems to suggest that's the case. I've reached out to Blizzard and Nexon for comment and will update this article if I hear back.

Bethesda union blasts Microsoft as Xbox layoffs hit the Fallout and Elder Scrolls studio, too: "When will this cycle of cuts in pursuit of ever-greater profits end?"

Amid serious layoffs going on at Xbox, there have been concerns over what'll happen at Blizzard, since it was acquired by Microsoft in a landmark deal in 2023. So far, it seems the studio behind World of Warcraft and Overwatch is safe from heavy redundancies, though an internal memo suggests there'll be more updates for the company further down the line.

Windows Central managed to get hold of an email from the desk of Johanna Faries, the president of Blizzard, who addressed concerns to staff. "While you can expect to hear more details regarding the day's events and what they mean for Blizzard in further communications, for now I simply want to acknowledge that today is a difficult day that impacts many people in a range of ways," the dispatch says.

"Please take care of yourself and others in this moment as best as possible," Fairies continues. "In light of today's news I want to thank everyone across Blizzard for moving with focus and creativity behind our strategic priorities, supporting our myriad communities and each other throughout."

Some 3,200 positions within Xbox, across multiple wings of the games divisions, have been impacted. This includes people at studios like id Software, Bethesda, and Arkane, among many others. This is all part of a "reset" Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty has been mentioning for some time, in order to push the company towards financial sustainability.

For the time being, Blizzard seems largely untouched, at least compared to what's happened to other teams, but Microsoft has suggested we'll be seeing more restructuring in the months to come. Being the home of Diablo, Warcraft, and StarCraft, the legendary studio is within its own bubble to an extent, and would require particular attention for any kind of reshuffling or change-up. Besides the fact that these franchises all have huge, active fanbases and live-service infrastructures to consider, you've got BlizzCon, a massive international event that welcomes tens of thousands of fans each year it occurs.

But what happens in the months and years ahead is anyone's guess. It seems likely we'll at least see some fat trimmed off in the form of unannounced projects, and perhaps another push for Warcraft or Diablo to be adapted to the big or small screen. Either way, the only constant is change right now. We'll keep you informed.

Xbox parts ways with 4 studios, with South of Midnight and Psychonauts devs going independent as Arkane begins "required consultation" to "review potential strategic options"

Overwatch has had a turbulent history on Steam, launching as the storefront's lowest-rated game in 2023 and only rising out of the "Overwhelmingly Negative" depths a couple of times – but now, things might just be turning around for Blizzard's hero shooter.

It's no secret that Overwatch hasn't performed well review-wise over on Valve's platform. Heck, even game director Aaron Keller himself has commented on the negative reception, stating earlier this year that he's "not sure what it would take for us to move up to a positive score at this point" – but, what do you know, Overwatch no longer has a negative rating attached to it on Steam at all. Now, it's actually "Mixed."

This applies to both its recent and overall reviews, as a new influx of more positive feedback has seen the previously "Mostly Negative" rating rise.

Sure, there are still plenty of comments on the game being disappointing. One amusing review (with 1,467 hours in-game, mind you) describes its writer's time in Overwatch as a "toxic relationship that needs to end." Others criticize performance, gameplay, and, yes, microtransactions.

Folks bring up microtransactions and in-game purchases quite a few times, unsurprisingly – I mean, we are talking about that game that recently charged nearly $100 for a cosmetic bundle that introduced a new skin rarity, after all.

As for the more positive reception the game has received recently, reviews range from amusing ("hot girls," y'all… hot girls) to informative, with some players feeling that Overwatch has made a comeback this year.

"In 2026, we finally got back to just Overwatch," reads one such review. "The new characters are fun with interesting kits, the battle pass is good value, there's a lot of chances to get loot boxes, which means free cosmetics, the paid cosmetics have been really good, and overall the game has a lot to offer everyone."

Another adds, "I never thought I'd be writing a positive Overwatch review again, but here we are. Character development, apparently."

Character development, indeed. This does beg the question, could Overwatch rise up even more on the Steam ladder and perhaps see some variation of a positive review rating? I'm not keeping my fingers crossed for "Overwhelmingly Positive" or anything, but I do wonder…

Uncharted 3 co-director and The Dragon Prince co-creator joins the Overwatch team, once again reigniting hopes for an animated show.

A former Microsoft gaming executive and Blizzard Entertainment's ex-president, Mike Ybarra, has reacted to the news of PlayStation's all-digital, disc-less future with some notes for console makers.

Sony Interactive Entertainment yesterday announced that physical production for new PlayStation games will end in January, 2028, effectively meaning games released after that point will no longer be printed on discs for the PS5, PS5 Pro, and inevitable PS6. A huge blow to game preservation and consumer rights, to say the least.

Former industry leader Mike Ybarra reckons platform holders have a lot of work to do before they're ready to ditch physical games and force gamers into an entirely digital future, based on a lengthy post to social media. "Sad to see this happening across the entire gaming industry. I guess it was going to happen at some point, but I didn't think it would be this soon," he tweets.

Top of the list? "You need to establish a digital promise for consumers. We can't live in a world of fear if our games will work in the future or not. You owe everyone a clear vision for our 'digital locker' that gives us confidence our games are actually our games. You don't get to just turn the games off (I get [multiplayer] games are different from [single-player] games, etc.)."

Reactions to PlayStation's decision have been heated, which might be putting it lightly, and a big worry is that games can simply be scrubbed offline or revoked for people who have spent real, hard-earned cash on them. Digital consumer rights in most countries haven't totally caught up yet, so nothing's legally stopping Xbox or PlayStation from going down this route.

"You need to innovate game sharing," Ybarra continues. "Lending my game to my friend should be as easy as handing him/her a disc. It's possible to do, I've lived it and looked into it before. As players, we should be able to share our games. You can have restrictions on it but fundamentally this should 'just work' 75%+ of the time. A 'friends and family' of 3, 6, 9, or whatever number is a solution others have in place. Mirror it and make it industry standard."

The former Blizzard boss then pitches a pretty radical idea that would let people "have an open marketplace" on consoles to resell their digital games to other players "for store credit or cash" – with the platform holders taking a cut of that money. "Game developers will not like this," Ybarra acknowledges, "but being consumer friendly has to go both ways here. A used game marketplace is a must have in my view."

He then asks console makers to make digital libraries more public, like achievements are, and to communicate what this all-digital future looks like more clearly. "All of this is possible. Make your platform the best place to play."

Downloading GTA 6 with the "hope it'll run in 50 years is not a preservation solution," Video Game History Foundation says as PlayStation kills discs.

Blizzard is pursuing legal action against private World of Warcraft server Project Ascension – a server that isn't the first to face a lawsuit from the company.

In case you missed the news earlier this year, Blizzard cracked down on private server Turtle WoW with a cease-and-desist order – only to then do the same to Stormforge, another server run by the MMO's players. There was no clear connection at the time, but Blizzard didn't stop with just the two. Most recently, it's gone on to target Project Ascension, a separate private server, with a lengthy lawsuit (thanks, Wowhead).

Project Ascension boasts a classless, free-to-play take on the usual World of Warcraft formula, with various game modes, custom raiding, and much more. It's been around for a good few years, undeniably catching the eye of Blizzard.

The company hadn't taken action against the private server for using its intellectual property until now, dubbing it an "egregious" violation on June 12.

"The defendants … have built an entire business on large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement of Blizzard's intellectual property," its initial complaint from earlier this month reads, outlining how Project Ascension stands "among the largest private WoW servers available today" with its million or so players.

A few days ago, Blizzard followed up on this with a summons request – and now, the clock is ticking.

As per the new request, the creators behind Project Ascension have three weeks to respond. "A lawsuit has been filed against you. Within 21 days after service of this summons on you (not counting the day you received it)… you must serve on the plaintiff an answer to the attached complaint or a motion…"

It concludes, "If you fail to respond, judgment by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint."

That's not a lot of time, considering the private server's years of service – and, uh, also the fact that its developers are still adding to their project. Heck, 20 hours ago, the official YouTube channel announced a whopping 21 new classes.

All of this begs the question: What's next for Project Ascension, really? Will it face the same fate as Turtle WoW and Stormforge… or somehow dodge it?

Honestly, I can't see the server dodging Blizzard's legal wrath here, no matter how I spin it in my head – but I suppose only time will truly tell.

World of Warcraft Camelot discovery gives the MMO's community its most compelling evidence yet that Blizzard might actually turn a myth into a long-hoped-for reality.

Blizzard has partially caved to Diablo 4 players outraged over changes to Mythics introduced in a recent playtest and planned for a permanent release in next week's Season of Death Awakened. Instead of completely reversing course, the studio is meeting players in the middle, insisting that the fundamentals of the updates are necessary for build diversity in the long-term.

ICYMI, Blizzard revealed the full details of Diablo 4's 14th season in a recent blog post, showing off a slick (but slightly jarring) Overwatch collab, a new endgame activity, and a Warlock free trial. But despite all of that cool and fun stuff, everyone's talking about Mythics, which are now just Mythic Uniques instead of their own distinct item rarity. The big hullabaloo is that Blizzard planned to completely remove the guaranteed stats that synergized with a Unique item's, ahem, unique powers. Suddenly, Uniques didn't sound so unique anymore, and the most powerful, rarest loot in the game, Mythic Uniques, were shaping up to be barely indistinguishable from Legendaries.

As you might expect, that didn't go down well with Diablo 4 players, and after testing the changes in the PTR, Blizzard has a pretty significant update tucked into the new season's announcement. Mythics are still just charged-up Uniques and any Unique can still be turned into a Mythic at the Horadric Cube, but crucially, Mythics will have two guaranteed bonuses instead of being completely random. The other two stat bonuses will still be random, but one of them will be able to be re-rolled through the Enchantress in town. Also, you'll still be able to convert a Unique to a Mythic Unique at the Cube, but now it'll give you something for the same slot, whereas in the PTR you could chuck in a Unique helmet and get a Mythic shield.

All in all, this updated system seems like it'll restore a lot of what made Mythics so fun and rewarding to chase in the first place without letting any single item completely dominate the meta, which of course means everyone's happy and no one's upset and life can just go on now, right? Right?!

Nope.

"So they ignored all the PTR tester feedback on the Mythic changes and they still went ahead with them?," reads one of the top comments in a Reddit thread discussing the new season. So much for that.

While that comment has more than 400 upvotes at the time of writing, suggesting, at the very least, people on Reddit who play a lot of Diablo aren't happy with Blizzard's compromise, there's no denying there is a compromise happening here. The original plan as tested in the PTR was for Uniques to drop with completely random stats just like any old item, which I was admittedly baffled by, but with the new setup of two fixed stats and two random ones, Blizzard is essentially going halfsies with players. It gets the randomness it wants for long-term build variety, and players get the thrill of chasing down one of a kind, incredibly powerful items as a reward for all their clicking. That's the way Blizzard sees it anyway.

"There's a handful of them that just become best-in-slot," Diablo 4 live-service lead Dan Tanguay says of the current selection of Mythics in an interview with GameSpot. "Once you can earn that, you get lucky enough to roll it, drop it, or craft it, that's it–you're never going to worry about that slot again.

And it kind of narrows the types of builds that players will pursue, especially if they're reading Maxroll or Icy Veins or something like that. We really want to increase the possibilities at the end of the game for what your build can be, and we need to look at mechanics that allow us to do that."

Blizzard softening its initial plan from the PTR and making Uniques considerably less random is part of its plan to "split the difference" with players wanting a full reversal of the new structure. That's not going to happen, but Tanguay says Blizzard will "keep iterating" on Uniques "until we arrive at something that we think is good for the long-term health of the game and that players really like."

You have to feel for the people at the frontline fielding these sorts of problems at Blizzard, constantly in a push-and-pull with the community over issues that, realistically, 90% of the player base will never even encounter. Again, Mythics are the rarest items in the game, and unless you're at the point where you're farming endgame bosses to get an item you need for a build you read about on Icy Veins, you'd never even know or care that those drops went from fixed stats to random ones. But because Blizzard is wisely taking on feedback from its most devoted players, I can only imagine the people calling the shots on this sort of stuff are in a near-constant state of stress.

Evidence of Diablo 4 coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 ramps up, as Blizzard Entertainment's RPG gets another rating.

A crossover between Diablo 4 and Overwatch should be an easy win. They're both owned by Blizzard, and they each have huge fanbases who generally love aesthetics and a bit of novelty. The in-game rewards are all well and good, but the action-RPG's new skins from the FPS aren't getting the strongest reaction from players.

Just like World of Warcraft and Starcraft before it, Overwatch is stepping into the hellfire of Diablo 4. Starting June 30, you can earn Eye of the Overwatch currency through defeating Elite and Champion foes to spend on special loot, for a limited time. In the game's regular shop, you'll find skins themed around the hero shooter, though players don't seem too fussed about those from first impressions.

"None of these look appealing or fit the universe to me," a fan bluntly says on Reddit. I can sympathize with the latter, because a couple of them are close to their original designs. Mercy's the biggest perpetrator, in my eyes, and the skin sticks out from Diablo's gloominess.

Commenters aren't holding back. "Mercy looks like a 90-year-old grandma here," writes another fan on Reddit. "This some bad comic con cosplay type shit," says a Redditor. "And even that's being disrespectful to cosplayers because most of them are miles better than this."

The frequency and pricing of these collaborations are big factors for the disdain. The StarCraft skins, for instance, ran you $185 for a complete set. World of Warcraft's came to over $540. Those are comfortably more than what it would cost you to buy the individual games and their expansions.

One player on Reddit notes the pricing on Fortnite, where such crossovers are rife, is much more reasonable collaboratively. "For context, an expensive bundle in Fortnite is generally less than half what the 'discounted' WoW bundle cost," they write. "Diablo 4's item store is completely insane and totally unacceptable for a game someone has already potentially spent £100 buying."

The Overwatch collaboration kicks off as part of Diablo 4 season 14, on June 30.

Overwatch charges nearly $100 for cosmetic bundle introducing a new skin rarity, and even cat maid outfits aren't enough to quiet the backlash.

Overwatch's Nyan Cafe bundle should be a slam dunk for the game as far as cosmetic packages go. Pink cat-themed maid outfits on five fan-favorite heroes? What's not to love? Blizzard Entertainment has all but assured its otherwise fun new outfits are steeped in backlash, however, thanks to a hard to swallow price and a new rarity of skins.

For those who aren't deep in the Overwatch trenches, bundles that package a bunch of themed Legendary outfits and cosmetics normally cost around 6,900 OW Coins or about $60 in real-world cash. The Nyan Cafe bundle instead costs 9,900 OW Coins, meaning most players will need to fork out an extra $100 since, like most live-service games, Overwatch doesn't let you buy an exact amount of coins.

Blizzard's reasoning for the bundle's higher price is that it's introducing two Ultra Skins for Sierra and Kiriko, a new rarity of skin, alongside three regular Legendary outfits for Reaper, Orisa, and Ashe. Buying the Ultra Skins in their individual character bundles costs 4,500 OW Coins ($40).

What sets Ultra Skins apart are the extra sound and visual effects added to reloads or eliminations, in this case a puff of pink cat-shaped smoke lands wherever an enemy dies, though Blizzard says it's "leaving things open for future innovation."

Fans were almost immediately dismayed at the new prices. "The quality of this game's cosmetic content keeps getting lower and lower while the prices get higher and higher," one player writes on the game's subreddit. "To quote one of this game's own characters, 'you shame yourself.'"

"As someone who's totally comfortable with blowing money on things I enjoy, no expense spared, this is just insulting. I don't enjoy the microtransaction culture in businesses and I'm disliking it even more seeing its evolution to macrotransactions," another response reads.

Similar sentiments are echoed up and down Overwatch's various online communities. The main worry is that Ultra Skins are just Blizzard's Trojan Horse dressed up in bright colors – a way to charge even more money for what would've been labelled a Legendary otherwise.

Pretty much the only person not irked by the price bump is noted Conker enjoyer and freshly-minted Overwatcher Doja Cat, who tweets: "On another note there is a new Nyan Café bundle on overwatch and it is one of the best things that has ever happened to me on this planet. I can't believe this is fucking real. Sierra’s skin is so good like I can't breathe."

Overwatch has always had pretty steep cosmetic prices, even compared to its direct competition, and so I can definitely understand the player frustration after seeing costs inflate without that much value being added on top.

Uncharted 3 co-director and The Dragon Prince co-creator joins the Overwatch team, once again reigniting hopes for an animated show.

After dropping a massive surprise StarCraft 2 update late last month, Blizzard is back with a public test release of a patch that remedies some of fans' balance requests – but sadly, it does not address one glaring issue many folks have had since late May.

In case you missed the news when it happened, StarCraft 2 did indeed receive an update last month that practically changed the 2010 real-time strategy gem from the ground up.

Blizzard described it as primarily focusing on "extending the early and mid-game experience, allowing players to remain competitive on one to three bases for longer periods," with the most notable tweak being a reduction in starting workers from 12 to eight.

Now, Blizzard has another patch up its sleeve – one that it says comes with "adjustments based on your feedback." As per the developer's official post on the new changes, there are some balance changes affecting spawn rates, mineral costs, speeds, and more, with a couple of bug fixes and quality-of-life tweaks, too.

The StarCraft 2 studio hasn't, however, gone back on its change to the starting worker number… even though fans want it to.

PTR notes update from r/starcraft

Over on Reddit, the community is sharing its thoughts on 5.0.16 – the new public test release update – and, of course, the topic of the starting worker number is everywhere.

The top reply states that Blizzard is "moving in the right direction," but that's "excluding [the] worker start number." Another response adds, "Literally nobody wants eight starting workers." It certainly seems to be the case, judging by fans' reaction to the patch.

As one person writes, "They really seem to be fixed on the eight-worker change. Such an awful change. This is the kind of change that will eliminate a good chunk of the current player base."

That might sound a bit dramatic, but to be fair, people are upset about it. It does add a bit more stress to the whole "strategy" aspect of StarCraft 2, emphasizing a slower start and preventing early economic spikes… but that doesn't mean fans are happy with it.

Here's hoping Blizzard hears everyone out in its next patch. It feels like it's taken a bit of a swing here and missed with the whole starting worker thing after the strategy game's huge May update – but it does show devs are listening… even if only a bit.

World of Warcraft Camelot discovery gives the MMO's community its most compelling evidence yet that Blizzard might actually turn a myth into a long-hoped-for reality

A newly discovered version of World of Warcraft, called "World of Warcraft Camelot," once again has the MMO community hoping and theorizing that an enhanced version of WoW Classic is on the way.

This week, a dataminer over at Wowhead came across something called 'World of Warcraft Camelot.' Rather than a new expansion for the retail version of the MMO, though, things are pointing to something else. That's because the new discovery is attached to patch 1.60, which was initially released in July 2006.

And that's not all. The dataminer also uncovered Epic and Heroic versions of World of Warcraft Camelot, which does point to something substantial, but probably not something related to the current trilogy that the main version of World of Warcraft is going through.

That's about it for the latest discovery so far, though it's worth mentioning that it's the latest in a string of circumstances that everyone thinks lead to WoW Classic+. Plenty of eyebrows were raised in the community when several content creators revealed they visited Blizzard to see something, though other teases are even starker. One being executive producer Holly Longdale gearing up to announce what's next for WoW Classic before being comically cut off.

Regardless of what's happening, it's something Blizzard appears happy to tease. Just last year, in fact, the developers released a yearbook that mentioned developers "cooking on the long-term future of WoW Classic."

So what is WoW Classic+? It hasn't actually been confirmed by Blizzard yet, so there's no one way to explain it. Broadly, though, fans are hoping for a new version of World of Warcraft that branches off from the main MMO and resembles something like Old School RuneScape. Naturally, the original WoW Classic was Blizzard's initial take on something new based on something old, but we have been slowly catching up with retail WoW with the release of new expansions, so it's clearly time for something fresh in that space.

Out of everything we've seen so far, the datamine is certainly substantial. It remains to be seen if World of Warcraft Camelot is the WoW Classic+ fans have been hoping for, though it wouldn't be surprising if it is, as Blizzard's future plans for the MMO in its various forms have often been spied early thanks to the efforts of dataminers. With BlizzCon set to take place later this year, we should hopefully find out before too long.

"They will hopefully p*** off": As World of Warcraft players take on the Casino Bots themselves, lead confirms Blizzard has "a few folks looking into ideas" to get rid of them.

For the first time in its decade-long run, Overwatch is finally giving its newest hero a proper rideable vehicle in the form of a kickass motorcycle that can Akira bike slide all over maps and also doubles as a huge, comical throwable.

Overwatch has never really included any drivable vehicles for the last 10 years, unless you count the flying nest that Jetpack Cat lounges on or things like skateboards that show up in a few emotes. That's all changing come June 16 when Overwatch Season 3: Into the Tiger's Den launches alongside the game's next menacing damage-based hero, Shion.

Shion already looks like an absolute battlefield bully mostly thanks to her kickass bike that can drift around tight corners, quickly cover large distances, and then deal a bucket of damage whenever you're ready to dismount. Smash Bros. Wario mains can rejoice! And even though you can't chomp up the vehicle if you're feeling peckish, one of Shion's major perks does let you recover health gradually while mounted. So, same difference?

But the rest of Shion's kit sounds just as lethal. Her dual pistols are locked to her primary fire, with each shooting out a three-round burst before alternating to the other. Her secondary fires an x-shaped volley, which you can tighten by holding the ability. She also has access to a quick dash that also dishes out overshield, the aforementioned bike, and an ultimate ability that has her rush in three directions like Marvel Rivals' Cloak and Dagger.

While we only recently got a look at Shion's kit and sleek design, she's been a pretty big presence in the game's lore for months. As the leader of the Hashimoto Clan – you know, the shady criminals that have been running Japan since the OG Overwatch days – she recently captured dear old Genji in a new short story. Which prompts the question: Big bike versus deflect... who wins?

Shion will be the seventh new Overwatch hero this year, with two more unnamed characters still to come. We've only seen a silhouette of the two remaining heroes, although one looks like another noir-style omnic, while the other resembles the bulky shape of D.Va's mech.

Uncharted 3 co-director and The Dragon Prince co-creator joins the Overwatch team, once again reigniting hopes for an animated show.

If you've been wandering around Azeroth of late, especially in any of the bigger cities, you've likely spotted casino bots – automated advertising for local gambling. They're meant to be against the rules in World of Warcraft, but real-money traders – RMTs – have been using them to get richer, quicker, and as players blow them up, Blizzard's looking into further preventative measures.

These nuisances can be found standing on wooden boxes, dancing away to pull you in for a gamble or give a winner a moment in the limelight. Users have gotten weary of the distraction, and in lieu of developers patching in more constraints for them, they've taken to taking them out.

A compilation on Reddit by user sozbro_ shows several being quite literally exploded. "I can't be online 24/7, and I certainly can't drop infernals on every casino bot myself," they say in the caption of the video. "Fortunately, this isn't a one-warlock problem."

As this is happening, Blizzard is on the case. "The casino thing that's vogue right now. Just to confirm we're aware, it's still against policy to advertise a casino so keep reporting them (or dropping infernals on them)," Tom Ellis, senior game producer on World of Warcraft, says on Twitter (thanks, Wowhead).

After some "digging in," he pins it on RMTs, because it's "an easy way to make gold quickly and cheaply." A blockade is being constructed, but don't expect much fanfare when it happens.

"We have a few folks looking into ideas on how we can make getting these people out of the game much faster so the activity is less lucrative and in turn, they will hopefully piss off," he explains. "Don't expect any sort of big fanfare 'Mission Accomplished!' banner for this one, this is one of the ones that you hopefully don't even notice stopped happening if we get it right."

As one Reddit commenter points out, gambling can be incredibly difficult and problematic for people. The allure of such activities could be triggering, especially if unexpected. Hopefully Blizzard's able to clamp down on this problem sooner rather than later.

"It has been an honor": World of Warcraft fans gather in popular private server Turtle WoW to say goodbye as it ends 8-year run following Blizzard lawsuit.

One former World of Warcraft veteran has officially joined Riot Games on its long-awaited League of Legends MMO, which is clearly still trucking on in the background.

Brian Holinka took to Twitter yesterday with the news, announcing: "First official day at Riot Games working on the League of Legends MMO!" Per his LinkedIn page, he's now the MMO's principal game designer.

It's definitely safe to say that Holinka is experienced when it comes to MMOs. He spent almost 11 full years at Blizzard before leaving in 2023, in which time he served as World of Warcraft's lead PvP designer, before going on to become the lead combat designer, leading the "team responsible for all combat-related systems for World of Warcraft, including class design and player versus player content," as described on his LinkedIn.

After that, he joined Fantastic Pixel Castle as gameplay design director – a studio led by former League of Legends MMO lead Greg Street, who was making a whole new MMO codenamed Ghost. Sadly, however, the studio was shut down last year after parting ways with NetEase Games, and while Street noted at the time that "there is still a chance we can secure funding after that date," ultimately, "it will depend on how much of the team remains."

Now, though, Holinka has taken his talents to Riot. We still know incredibly little about the League of Legends MMO, which was announced back in 2020. With that said, only a couple of months ago, Riot co-founder Marc Merrill stated that the studio is "more committed to" the idea of making a great MMO "than ever" before, and bringing in new folks like Holinka certainly suggests that effort is being made.

Holinka isn't the only WoW veteran to join the team, either. Former World of Warcraft lead producer Raymond Bartos announced that he'd joined Riot's project at the start of the year as senior game producer, and in doing so, he reunited with Orlando Salvatore – once a lead software engineer at Blizzard, and now senior engineering manager on the LoL MMO. Needless to say, there's a strong team behind the upcoming game – let's just hope it won't be that much longer before we can actually see it in action.

For now, you can check out our list of the best MMOs to play today.

Nearly a year has passed since the last StarCraft 2 update dropped, and Blizzard is back now with another – and this one packs quite a punch.

In case you're out of the loop, StarCraft 2 just got a new patch – and it fundamentally changes the 2010 real-time strategy gem from the ground up. As per the official notes on Blizzard's website, the update primarily focuses on "extending the early and mid-game experience, allowing players to remain competitive on one to three bases for longer periods." And, oh boy, does it do just that… and more, too.

"We've introduced changes to make non-warped Gateway play a more viable path," Blizzard continues, "while also increasing overall strategic diversity across all three races." There are also, of course, plenty of quality-of-life improvements in place "to enhance the overall player experience."

So, what makes this StarCraft 2 update such a big deal? Well, most notably, it reduces the starting workers from twelve to eight.

StarCraft II 5.0.16 PTR Patch Notes from r/starcraft

This opens up the potential for new opening strategies, just as the old swap from six to 12 with Legacy of the Void did.

The Warpgate tweaks are wild as well, with research tech now in the Cybernetics Core rather than the Gateway. Warpgate Research now speeds up Gateway unit production time by 35%, though – at the cost of 50 Gas and Minerals. Thankfully, the Warp-in Time has also decreased to three seconds (from 3.6s and 11.4s).

Other adjustments include changes to default minerals, reduced supply from base buildings, and a plethora – I mean a LOT – of bug fixes.

Unsurprisingly, the community is losing it over patch 5.0.16, taking to forums like Reddit to discuss it. Many fans aren't even convinced it's real, it's that mind-boggling. "I thought it was April Fool's," as one person writes. Another jokes, "StarCraft 3."

My personal favorite sums the situation up nicely: "Wtf is happening?" Indeed, anon. Indeed.

Overall, I'd say most players are at least excited, with some describing the update as bringing "absolutely groundbreaking changes and amazing QoL." And, understandably, they're shocked.

As one fan puts it, "I started playing in 2020, I saw nothing even coming close to how wild these changes are." Blizzard has managed to blow all of our minds, eh?

Here's hoping that the new StarCraft update doesn't prove too chaotic a change, and fans adapt to what might just stand as the RTS game's most notable patch in a long time.

Diablo 4 Season 14 brings controversial Mythic Unique changes and heavy nerfs, but hey, at least Blizzard is finally introducing one long-requested mode.

Ahead of Diablo 4 Season 14, a new Public Test Realm (PTR) is on the way, with major balance changes, new features, and more arriving next week.

As announced by Blizzard in a new blog post, the 3.1.0 PTR will go live on June 2 at 10am PDT and run until June 9 at the same time, giving you a week to sample the changes arriving in the base game's upcoming 14th season.

First up, Pandemonium Ruptures are being added – these can be opened by killing "the guardians around Death's Head Idols," and the longer you manage to keep them open (by killing monsters and closing Tears), the more tasty loot you'll earn. Completing a Surging Rupture (a medium-sized one) with Mastery will also give a chance of summoning a Realmwalker (returning after first being added in Season 6) – you can also guarantee a spawn of one of these by completing a Colossal Rupture in the Fields of Desecration.

The reason you'll wanna do this is because defeating a Realmwalker opens a portal to the Deathtoll Chamber – a mini dungeon that Blizzard says "will be the best source for Betrayer's Husks, which are required to open the Seasonal Lair Boss's Hoard in Torment I+." You can also enter the Deathtoll Chamber "inside a Nightmare Dungeon with the Rupture affix after closing enough Tears within Rupture." It'll also boast even more rewards for folks who "complete a special Rupture activity" inside.

As for that new seasonal lair boss, it's the Corrupted Reaper, found in "Pandemonium Threshold's entrance in Zarbinzet." Blizzard reveals "it will also give the best direct drop chances for both Mythic Uniques and Mythic Unique Upgrade currency than any other activity." And that brings us to a change that's already proving unpopular – from season 14 onwards, "every Unique can be Mythic," with the Mythic status changing from an item Rarity to a modifiable Item Quality, letting you "make any Unique item into a game-altering Mythic through Item Quality modifiers."

Blizzard explains: "This season, any Unique can now drop as a Mythic Unique or be upgraded into a Mythic Unique using the Horadric Cube."

On the whole, these Mythic changes haven't been going down very well – one player on Reddit says they "drastically reduce the value and desirability of what is supposed to be the 'apex item' tier," and "the idea of randomizing stats on Mythic Uniques annihilates any remaining value they once had."

"I'm NOT looking for constant RNG within my RNG," another says. "Uniques and especially Mythics need some consistency to their stats or they're just not worth mixing into your build. I'm already gambling if they'll drop and now I'm gambling if they will drop in a usable state."

Elsewhere, there's also a whole slew of balance changes, notably including a big nerf for the Whirlwind Barbarian build. As outlined by content creator Rob2628, a number of incoming changes are going to have a significant impact on the build, including the Limitless Rage aspect being changed from giving you a potential damage buff of 1.5% for every point of Fury to just 0.2%. Heir of Perdition's damage is substantially reduced from 80% to just 15%, and the Dominate Glyph is "reduced from 23.6% per stack to 1.8% per stack at Glyph Level 150." The Banished Lord's talisman's damage per stack has also gone down from 15-18% to just 8-10%.

As one commenter writes, "RIP barb again for 9 more seasons lmao." Another says: "Limitless rage from 1.5 to .2 smh thats not nerfing thats destroying."

All in all, it's looking like a slightly mixed bag of a PTR, and season to follow – the Mythic changes are already leaving a bad taste in the mouth for many, but it's not all bad news. Solo Self Found Mode is finally coming to let people craft characters without any help from others, which means no trades to give them a boost. With their own leaderboard filters being added, it'll allow you to show off something that you've done all the work for yourself, with no shortcuts.

What's more, in perhaps the greatest change of all, "pets can now be renamed." Be sure to take a look at the complete patch notes if you want to see the full scope of what's to come.

Diablo 4 lead says small teams crunch "because the company is on the verge of collapsing," but even though it's not "necessary" for AAA studios, "you might still have a culture of crunch."

Overwatch Season 3's new hero has seemingly been teased, and it's all thanks to an upcoming in-game event that's also bringing fresh cosmetics and an animated music video from a real-world J-pop group.

Blizzard Entertainment today announced a new Overwatch event coming on June 30, billed as a collaboration with pop duo Yoasobi. The event promises new skins for the game's Japanese heroes (Kiriko, Genji, Hanzo), an original song from the group, and an animated music video. All in all, it follows the same blueprint the team set out with its Le Sserafim K-pop collab.

What's different here is that the Overwatch team also dropped a pretty substantial short story a whole month early as part of the crossover called The Fall of a Sparrow, written by E.C. Myers. The lore drop sees Genji on a recon mission to gather information about the seedy Hashimoto Clan that's been teased elsewhere, too.

Things get real interesting near the end when the criminal clan captures Genji and brings him to a "shadowy figure" who's running the whole show. Here's the closing interaction in full:

"What is this supposed to be?" The figure spoke in a disdainful tone. There was a mechanical, robotic tinge to her voice. "A Shimada, judging by his sword and fighting style," the lieutenant said. Metal thunked onto the desk. "Really?" the elder said, leaning forward. "You have my interest."

Overwatch fans have for months theorized that Season 3's hero will somehow be connected to the Hashimoto Clan after the devs released a roadmap promising a new Japan-set map alongside the horned, mechanical silhouette seen in the headline image above. Together with a Mizuki short story that also made mention of an intimidating lady behind the organization, it's not hard to see where the speculation comes from.

Overwatch Season 3 should be arriving sometime in the middle of June, so we'll find out if Hashimoto's mysterious leader is the game's next hero pretty soon.

While showering fans in loot boxes, Overwatch director agrees the game's 10th anniversary disappoints and promises celebrations throughout the year.

It's a sad day for the World of Warcraft community, as players say goodbye to a longstanding fan server, Turtle WoW. Following a legal battle against Blizzard itself, the lights are being totally switched off on the custom homestead, prompting players to host their own special goodbye as they await the end.

If you're unaware, Turtle WoW is a collection of custom servers for World of Warcraft that host an old-school version of the beloved MMORPG. The idea is, or was, to provide a way for people to continue playing WoW as if it never evolved much beyond its early years. That means less cosmic battles and grandiose ideas, more fantastical questing. The version is dubbed 'Vanilla+', and the whole platform is a hotbed for modified approaches to Azeroth.

A fan-made expansion eventually emerged, Mysteries of Azeroth, that delved deeper into the mythology through this lens. But after eight years, the whole venture is closing down after Blizzard managed to serve a cease-and-desist order to the group behind it.

"Working on Turtle WoW has been the highlight of our lives," Torta, a member of the Turtle WoW team, says in a forum post. "It has been an honor to build with you and for you. Whether you were exploring new stories, leveling, raiding, PvPing, roleplaying, or just enjoying a quiet moment in the world, seeing how much this game means to you has been our greatest privilege."

This spectre has been looming for some time. There was a legal tussle for the server's existence, and an open letter to Blizzard sits on the Turtle WoW homepage. "Unlike other studios, Blizzard does not yet have a framework that allows projects like ours to operate without risking legal conflict," the team wrote. "With that in mind, we respectfully ask that Blizzard consider establishing a formal ecosystem for licensing fan‑run community servers."

Several points are raised, including how popular games such as GTA 5 and Skyrim have vastly expanded their fanbase thanks to mods. Turtle WoW had a thriving fanbase, and many of them will probably hang around in the game, but this is the kind of thing that pushes players away. Never underestimate the damage resentment can do.

The YouTuber Pespline uploaded a clip of Turtle WoW diehards huddling together on a riverbank for the end of days. Honestly, it's enough to bring a lump to your throat. Godspeed, one and all - I hope you all find each other elsewhere.

World of Warcraft streamers attend top-secret Blizzard event, leaving fans hoping for the version of the MMO they've tried to manifest for years

Overwatch fans are lamenting that Fortnite is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the hero shooter better than Blizzard itself is.

Earlier this week, the Overwatch 10th Anniversary Event kicked off in-game, and very quickly, fans discovered that it kinda stinks. Most of the new cosmetics are the Decennium Skins, which are purple and white recolors for the original cast. But at the same time, the Fortnite x Overwatch collab also kicked off this week, which brought Tracer, Genji, Mercy, and D.VA to the game as skins, as well as making some changes to battle royale mode with Tracer's guns, Mercy's Staff and a number of POI's taking the form of iconic Overwatch locations.

Over on Reddit, a post laments that Fortnite's crossover does Overwatch more justice than the game's own devs, with responses saying "I'm actually more excited to play Fortnite's Overwatch mode than the actual Overwatch." Another adds, "Epic just made Blizz look absolutely pathetic." Meanwhile, another puts it simply: "When the crossover vastly outshines the anniversary…"

It's even inspired some more conspiracy-minded posts, with one user theorizing: "The Anniversary event is so hilariously bad that I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of the Epic deal: push the playerbase over to Fortnite until the end of the season." In the same vein, another says, "I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did this on purpose; make a lackluster 10th anniversary event in their own game and let Epic do the heavy lifting with a Fortnite collab to rake in profits that way," and that it's "kind of a shame they'd put so much stock into another game rather than their own honestly."

Truthfully, I highly doubt the event is intentionally bad, but I can definitely understand how underwhelming some are finding it. Although, to Overwatch's credit, it did just relaunch with multiple new characters earlier this year, which is a pretty significant thing for a big milestone year.

Fortnite's most embarrassing cause of death has been removed, but Epic Games has managed to balance it shockingly well.

Uh oh – it appears, in making some changes to Warlocks in Diablo 4, Blizzard's managed to break the class to a pretty drastic extent. A particular combination of equipment will make you practically unstoppable, by way of enabling you to one-shot much of what comes your way, even in a high-ranking dungeon.

There are four aspects to this intersection of pain. You have Command Fallen and Command Ae'grom, then the Paingorger's Gauntlets, Oikos-Hewer of Mutilation, and the Evisceration Fragment. As of the last patch, having these together lets you just run through many of the RPGs enemies with ease – particularly Elites, due to the Rampage skill.

See, the patch sorted a problem with the Mutilation on the Evisceration Fragment, but it's over-corrected and made the associated effects go haywire. Diablo-focused YouTuber wudijo demonstrates as much in a short video explaining the build and just showing off its power. At the core is his own custom Lunatic outline, which uses Fallen and Ae'grom, a popular way of playing as Warlock in Diablo 4.

Put this all together, and you'll get damage scaling to the point of just mutilating anything that steps in your way. This makes Level 150 of the Pit of Artificers, the peak of the whole gauntlet, a bit of a breeze by normal standards.

What's slightly troubling is that it's not hard to figure out this setup, as wudijo points out it was his normal build, plus the Mutilation and Evisceration fragments. Minor tweaks on their face that change the whole complexion of the game.

He reckons there'll be a hotfix for this soon, and I'd agree. It skews all the demon-slaying to a pretty drastic degree. If you want to get some kicks from it, boot up Diablo 4 as soon as possible.

Blizzard was working on Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred before the base RPG even launched, and that's why some of its biggest features were "deployed early."

Overwatch is almost 10 years old, and Blizzard has kicked off the anniversary celebrations, promising new skins, other cosmetics, and "a legendary good time." Unfortunately, the fanbase has been left rather disappointed with all three of those things, with one player summing up the mood by saying it "genuinely feels like we're being pranked."

The main rewards on offer for anyone who plays during the 10th Anniversary Event (which started yesterday and runs until June 1) are the Anniversary Loot Boxes. You can earn 15 of them over the course of three weeks, which contain a limited pool of rewards – most notably, Epic-rarity skins of the original Overwatch roster. Called the Decennium skins; they're purple-and-white recolors, and… that's about it. The loot boxes also contain new name cards, player icons, and sprays.

"My expectations were zero and I'm still disappointed," one Reddit user writes, sharing a screenshot of the shiny, purple Reinhardt skin. They add: "The 10th anniversary should be unforgettable, as it only ever happens once. They were on such a roll with the Overwatch refresh, new heroes, faster response to player feedback. How could they mess it up this bad? Genuinely feels like we're being pranked."

My expectations were zero and I'm still disappointed from r/Overwatch

Another asks, "what were they thinking with the Anniversary Lootboxes?" They write: "I thought although the Anniversary event was trash, we would at least with the Anniversary Lootboxes get something???? Like idk any Legendary or Epic from the game with a 100% rate or prism or something good . What THE HELL do you mean is just the ugly anniversary skins, stickers and sprays?" On a separate thread, another says: "I didn't know it was possible to be let down even more."

What doesn't help matters is that players in China are able to access a very different 10th anniversary event, which everyone agrees is just significantly better. As showcased by Reddit user Link4750 (below), the celebration includes a log-in bonus to grant Mythic Prisms, a premium currency which can be spent on valuable Mythic skins, as well as challenges to earn loot boxes and other currency, which can be spent on returning battle passes and other skins.

China's 10th Anniversary Event - In-Depth Look from r/Overwatch

"The previous battle pass skins loadout is actually such a missed opportunity for the rest of the world," one fan comments. Another writes: "This just makes me bummed out, rewards and loot boxes aside even the event interface is so much more unique and cool." As another puts it, "Ugh, Blizzard did us dirty."

While players outside of China can still receive a total of three Legendary loot boxes if folks complete the event's Global Lootbox Charge by finishing enough challenges, you can understand why people are feeling a bit let down. What's more, new skins – like the bunny-themed White Rabbit skins and the Date Night cosmetics – have been added to the game's shop to coincide with the event, but these all cost Overwatch coins, which Blizzard isn't forthcoming with giving out during the anniversary.

The whole thing has prompted comparisons to Marvel Rivals' big first-anniversary event last year, too, with one user saying that, in contrast, "this is super sad and disappointing."

Whether Blizzard decides to throw disappointed players a bone and hand out some extra rewards remains to be seen, but so far, it seems to be a very underwhelming celebration for the game, especially on the back of its recent rebrand and resurgence following the decision to drop the '2' from its name.

10 years later, Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan debunks the game's first controversy: "We actually didn't nerf Tracer's butt."

Game development is tricky as is, but on games like Diablo 4, it can be especially tough because of the ambiguity around what approach to take. Many decisions boil down to just making a move, seeing how it lands, then adjusting based on feedback, according to one of the leads on Blizzard's hellbound action-RPG.

"We're often faced with solving real problems, and we don't always have the ideal solution in front of us," Zaven Haroutunian, associate game director on Diablo 4, told IGN. "In fact, there's often no ideal solution. Often, we just have to pick a thing."

As you may well know, the collective Diablo community is not shy about what works and what doesn't, and frequently the devs will move with how players are feeling. "It's only after you step back from the stuff you've made that your perspective changes and you understand the impact of your decisions, both positive and negative," Haroutunian explained. "Really, that’s only when you can get a clear picture of what you've actually made."

Looking through the patch notes for many of the team's updates will reveal as much. Amid the bug fixes and such are lots and lots of minor nerfs, buffs and tweaks, frequently across practically every facet of the game. The fine-tuning is constant, as fans continually test the mechanics to their limits.

This goes further with additions like in Lord of Hatred, where the Warlord and Paladin classes were added, disrupting the status quo of the skill tree and the respective power balance. "A lot of it is just repositioning. Making sure everything is in the right place to have the right impact," he says. "Customisation in the Skill Tree. Power with the items. Crafting in the Horadric Cube. The Talisman bringing depth. Every skill has options, and every class will reap the benefit of the work we've done."

In fact, it gave an excuse to do a top-down revamp that proved useful for all involved. "It solves a problem while refreshing every class in the game," he adds.

World of Warcraft streamers attend top-secret Blizzard event, leaving fans hoping for the version of the MMO they've tried to manifest for years

The World of Warcraft community has always had Classic, a vanilla experience in which fans can enjoy the MMO as it was before all of its expansions, but what about Classic Plus?

If you've not heard of it yourself, World of Warcraft Classic Plus doesn't actually exist – yet, anyway – but has circulated the web for years now as players yearn for a cleaner, modern take on the base Classic release… a version with more modern updates and quality-of-life features, basically. Think Old School RuneScape and the like.

A quick search on Reddit alone shows all of the Classic Plus discussions that have unfolded over time. In other words, it's a very popular idea without any actual grounding in reality – until now, that is… or, well, we'd like to think, anyway.

As per Wowhead, Blizzard recently invited a bunch of WoW Classic content creators – like Xaryu, Esfand, Guzu, Savix, and sodapoppin – to a secret event. Unfortunately, they're all under an NDA, so we've got no idea what was actually happening over at the Blizzard campus in California, where they attended.

The fact that they're all specifically Classic streamers, however, has unsurprisingly left folks excited over a potential Plus release. Just have a peek at Xaryu's recent stream, in which he reveals he's visiting Blizzard's headquarters.

His chat goes wild with "Classic+ confirmed" messages and the like. And, amusingly, one person had to comment about a new mobile game. Here's hoping it's the former rather than the latter, though.

I'd say it's not too far outside of the realm of possibility. Xaryu's little smile feels like a hint in itself when fans start spamming their theories about Classic Plus, along with the fact that players have wanted it to come to fruition for literal years now. Heck, there's even a community-led project to make it happen – so it's evidently on the wishlist of many a hopeful WoW enjoyer. It does all beg the question, when will the NDA lift?

I suppose only time will tell, but I'm sure we'll find out what Blizzard has up its sleeve for Classic players soon enough – fingers crossed it's sooner rather than later.

World of Warcraft "will continue to decline" unless the MMO gets a "reset," says former Blizzard boss.

The first substantial patch post-Lord of Hated rolls out on Diablo 4 in a couple of days, and Blizzard's revealed the long, long list of changes. Besides a cavalcade of minor bug fixes, we've got a number of quality-of-life improvements and tweaks across many aspects of the game, including to Talismans, War Plans, and plenty more.

An immediate stand-out in the patch notes is actually buried towards the bottom, in the endgame section. If you've been having real problems with the Burning Butcher, it turns out the odds were stacked against you. He's been debuffed substantially; he now has considerably less health, and one of his abilities has been toned down.

He won't suddenly exit if you're in stealth anymore, either. On the Talisman side of things, charms now have a distinct sound and minimap icon to make finding them considerably more straightforward. For something slightly more obtuse, a "useless unique item" can't be transmuted anymore.

A problem where players were respawning in out-of-bounds areas has been remedied, something that no doubt inspired some extremely passionate feedback, and an issue involving repeating and overlapping NPC dialogue after you re-enter a room a number of times. My personal highlight is the change to a puzzle in the Path of Riddles that pointed to "Destruction" instead of "Corruption," tripping players up.

For War Plans, an infinite farming exploit in Nemesis Boss Lairs has been sewn up, and some unintended rewards are once again gated off as required. Many of the classes get their own sets of specific alterations and fixes, and there's a slew of other changes.

It's a solid slate that should make playing that much smoother for all involved. It goes live on May 13 - Butchers beware.

For Diablo 4's Lord of Hatred DLC, Blizzard designed the new warlock class to feel like it could beat the necromancers and sorceresses in a "fist fight."

If you asked me back in summer 2023, I'd have told you Diablo 4 was a notable next chapter in Blizzard Entertainment's action RPG series. But as we all know, grindy online RPGs have to evolve fast as their communities demand more content and more polish. Almost three years later, the Lord of Hatred expansion has positioned it as a serious contender for the ARPG crown, and most of its strengths come from its much-maligned predecessor Diablo 3.

With Lord of Hatred and Season 13, it truly feels like a convincing long-term vision for Diablo 4 is coming into focus. Its present and future are combining lessons learned from the entire series and not just Diablo 2, which continues to get its fair share of love through new Resurrected content anyway. At long last, I'm proud to say: we are so back.

The runes dilemma

As sturdy as its core always was, Diablo 4 was stuck in a "no man's land" of MMO-lite design circa Destiny 2, unsure whether to commit to the more casual crowd or try to entice genre diehards who would always be better served by Path of Exile's sicko-first priorities. This resulted in muddled progression systems and an approach to skills and perks that largely resulted in a hodgepodge of numbers that didn't amount to much for too long, with most players only getting a few hours into their seasonal journeys before deciding their time was better spent elsewhere.

The (demonic) elephant in the room was that its old-fashioned skill tree was kind of bad, actually. Veterans would try to convince you it gave them far more control over their builds, but we mostly had a regular amount of skills with small increments through additional nodes plus passives that didn't do much when compared to the late-game bonuses and unique effects enabled by high-level gear.

With Lord of Hatred's launch, all skill trees - not just those pertaining to new classes - have received a substantial rework, putting them way closer to Diablo 3's originally divisive (but more impactful) system.

Secondary nodes alter or totally transform skills in tangible ways, and passives are essentially gone on a class level. The reworked Equipment system and the absolutely daunting Paragon Board take care of those now, and instead, you're getting cool gameplay changes based on your choices. Like transforming chain projectiles into flaming, spinning chains that are planted on the ground. Welcome back, Diablo 3 runes.

As important for a rewarding endgame grind the traditional loot showers and late-game toying with stats are, Diablo 4's class trees used to feel like a missed opportunity. Now, root-level build variety is back on the menu. This affects the moment-to-moment fun, as we're no longer encouraged to get used to two or three meta builds per season by a rigid system. More iteration on other fronts might be needed, but classes are in a pretty good spot right now thanks to one of Diablo 3's once-derided experiments.

Paint the town anything but red

A game that desperately tried to shake things up even if the initial effort wasn't quite there, an unsung strength of Diablo 3's is its more colorful art style and overall presentation. It was obviously influenced by World of Warcraft's success, but it helped set it apart from not just the second game, but also the rest of the Diablo-like subgenre. Diablo should've always been the ARPG series breaking new ground, not one living in the shadows of others.

While I think Diablo 4's gritty, less cartoonish aesthetic serves a function and appreciate how disturbing and fittingly dark its vibes can get, that's no reason to paint the entire game in muddy shades of grey, brown, and red with the sole intention of pleasing Diablo 2 diehards. Even in the lush jungles of Vessel of Hatred's Nahantu region, colors are annoyingly muted. Only the fires of Hell, angelic lights, and magical effects have a pop to them.

While Lord of Hatred doesn't retroactively alter Diablo 4's overall palette, the new Skovos Isles region - a Mediterranean-inspired zone controlled by the Amazons - is a breath of fresh air. The countryside, although infected by demons and other abominations, looks crisp and autumnal in shades of auburn. These more saturated hues cover the trees and vegetation in a conscious attempt to inject more visual dimension into the world of Sanctuary, and it more than pays off.

Lord of Hatred feels like Blizzard firing on all cylinders because it dares to look to the studio's more recent past to shape Diablo 4's present and future. Diablo 2 is a distant game that's been perfectly refreshed, and with Path of Exile 2 promising the densest and most punishing ARPG loop around when it hits 1.0, Diablo 4 must become its own thing: an immediately fun game that's easy to jump into and can satisfy in small or large doses without getting too lost in the weeds. That flexible approach is what made Diablo 3 enduring in the end, and that truth should've never been avoided or ignored for so long.

Though War Plans, a new optional endgame structure cutting down on management and bridging different activities together, needs a lot of work before it's accepted by the community, Diablo 4 feels finished now. All it took was a mix of accepting past wins and decisions tied to a game folks aren't nostalgic about just yet. With base-level issues squashed and confidence regained, Lord of Hatred's explosive finale could also be considered a new beginning. And, unlike a few months ago, I'm excited to see what comes next.

Check out some of the best ARPGs to play next if you're a Diablo 4 diehard!

After years of searching, Diablo 4's secret cow level has been uncovered. The mythological area was discovered through layers of bovine-themed jumping through hoops, right on the heels of the Lord of Hatred expansion's release.

If you're at all familiar with the Diablo games, you probably know about the secret cow level in Diablo 2, a hidden dungeon that requires players to follow some specific instructions in order to access it. Inside are a bunch of demonic bovidae who provide quite nice loot, as an extra reward beyond simply getting there.

The whole thing is a longstanding meme that carried into Diablo 3, and now the fourth installment. Since release, people have been piecing together in-game esoterica involving cows, including, but not limited to, going to a cow island and fishing cows out of the ocean. I wish I was kidding.

Finally, the portal's been unlocked, and it corresponds with Lord of Hatred's release. To keep things brief, on the day the expansion became available, a clue became visible that drops a hint about seeing something with your own eyes. Then, after going back to the cow island (where else?), you'll find a number of cattle in a circle.

Killing them all opens the hallowed gates to the realm of pure moo-jesty. Through there, you'll find similarly buff, bovine enemies to the previous two iterations, and if you bash your way around enough, you'll eventually find the Cow King, who drops his crown when you defeat him. A video from LoathBurger above goes through everything in finer detail.

This thing has different effects depending on the day you're wearing it, for added absurdism. Sadly, after all this digital archaeology, some players are a tad disappointed. "Both D2 and D3 cow levels were great for loot, and also had some whimsy in their sound effects/lvl ost. Compared to that, this cow level seems a bit... boring," one player states on Reddit.

"Cows don't even say moo, I'm uninstalling," another fan jests. "Eeeh looks like it needs more cows?" someone muses. "Given the amount of effort this took to reach (seriously, kudos) I did expect something a little more... idk, wacky?" a fourth Redditor adds.

Maybe the real treasure is the cows we passed along the way, hm? Perhaps Diablo 5's secret cow level will be more roundly satisfying.

Blizzard swiftly removes new Diablo 4 quality-of-life feature after players complain it was costing them valuable loot: "It missed the mark."

Though the series has been riding high for decades now, Diablo almost didn't make it to shelves. The original genre-defining action-RPG narrowly avoided death by bankruptcy, thanks to Blizzard, who made a lifesaving offer at the eleventh hour for the devs behind the fledgling project.

See, Diablo was the brainchild of a studio called Condor in the early '90s. Although progress was happening, it was looking increasingly like finances would run dry first, until a sudden call from the company behind Warcraft. "The offer was unexpected, but very welcome. The taxman was literally at the door, threatening to shut us down," Erich Schaeffer, co-founder of Condor, originally told Edge Magazine, now reprinted in Playmakers.

Blizzard offered not just to fund the game, but to acquire Condor, turning it into Blizzard North. Suddenly, resources were plentiful, opening up the possibilities for what Diablo could be. This completely changed the scope of the hellbound role-playing game, and proved to be a pivotal moment for the medium as a whole.

"At this point the budget was very low, under half a million dollars," Max Schaefer adds. "Once we were acquired, we sat down to work out what we could do now we were free from budgetary constraints and had a little extra time. How could we make this as big as possible?"

Thus, the world was introduced to the Kingdom of Khonduras in 1997, and Diablo was an instant best-seller. A sequel was announced in short order, and three years later, Diablo 2 arrived, to even greater success. The second installment remains a standard-bearer for loot-driven dungeon-crawling, with a remaster coming out in 2021.

But it all started with Diablo, a little experiment in combining Dungeons and Dragons with some roguelike structuring. Who knew a blizzard would be all such a venture through hell needed to survive?

Diablo 4 streamer pulverizes new Lord of Hatred expansion's difficulty tier in 17 hours, complains about lack of "aspirational content"

Oh dear, what once seemed like a good way to help players in Diablo 4 actually proved to be more of a hindrance, leading Blizzard to roll it back. Special portals, added for quicker escapes from pits and towers, were causing people to miss out on valuable loot, and have now been removed.

It's the topline change in the latest Diablo 4 hotfix. "Finishing a pit or tower run no longer spawns a portal to exit from," the patch notes state, followed by some further context: "Our intention with adding this portal was for [quality-of-life], but it missed the mark."

These gateways sound incredibly handy at first, as they arrive right when you're done and allow you to zip out of the dungeon. The issue is they would often spawn right near some nice treasure, unprompted, and a single miss-click would have you zipping away from the rewards you just killed a bunch of hellspawn to get.

This annoyance is compounded by the fact that players can already create portals if they so choose. In trying to streamline that mechanic, Blizzard made something way more inconvenient.

"Why in the name of Rathma did you put a no-confirmation portal out of a dungeon that you cannot return to?" wrote one frustrated player on Reddit. "That spawns on top of me. That causes you to forfeit your unspent glyph points. That has loot scattered ALL AROUND IT."

Their views are shared by many experienced Diablo 4 fans. "There's no reason to have a portal open when we finish the pit other than to screw us out of our rewards by accidentally clicking it when we are trying to finish off the mobs," writes another Reddit user. "When you finish a pit a portal appears, it needs to go away! I finished a pit and accidently clicked on the portal. I couldn't upgrade my glyphs or pick up gear," another fan on the Diablo 4 forums states.

Blizzard's heart may have been in the right place here, but the execution needs work. Making it a mechanic that people can turn on or off would probably help, as well as proximity detection to valuable items. Regardless, they've been thrown into the portal of bad mechanics - for now, at least.

Diablo 4 streamer pulverizes new Lord of Hatred expansion's difficulty tier in 17 hours, complains about lack of "aspirational content."

Diablo 4 streamer Mekuna just beat the new Lord of Hatred campaign's nasty new Torment 12 difficulty tier in 17 hours – and the fact that he was able to complete such a hardcore feat seems to worry him. Not because playing 17 hours straight of Diablo 4 likely does something funny to your organs, but because he thinks T12 is too achievable.

Mekuna writes in the description for his summary video on YouTube discussing what he calls the "Diablo 4 LoH Endgame Issue," "it just didn't take that long. With the right approach, anyone can do it."

To me, a person who cannot play a game for longer than eight hours without worrying she's forgotten what sunshine feels like, Mekuna's concerns here seem unrealistic – but they are also indicative of the rift beginning to form in the Diablo 4 community between no-nonsense players desperate for bigger and dirtier challenges, and those who just aren't.

Shortly after Mekuna concludes his 17 hour T12 run on stream – the Diablo 4 expert did the whole thing in one sitting – he laments the fact that "there is no, like, aspirational content" that motivates him to grind more and "makes me want to log in."

To developer Blizzard's credit, Diablo 4 associate game director Zaven Haroutunian recently addressed these demands from some players for more "aspirational content," explaining that, "What we've tried to do is as much as possible in Lord of Hatred is create opportunities for players to make their own goals, their own aspirational goals."

But Mekuna, and similarly competitive Diablo 4 players like him, don't seem satisfied with this populist approach. In his analysis video, which you can watch in full above, the streamer concedes that "T1 to T12 is, like, way better for the general playerbase, because it separates the progression way better for them."

That said, "I feel like the marketing that Blizzard put into that was, T12 was supposed to be aspirational content, and it was something we were going to strive for," Mekuna explains. "The way it was communicated to us was a bit misleading. We were thinking about reaching T12 in like two weeks of grinding, and unfortunately, that didn't happen."

"We are still missing something about the end game," the streamer says. Mekuna also makes a point to mention, "I also see people that's going to come and say it's because I'm a streamer, it's because I no-life the game. Well, that [T12 challenge] just took me 17 hours, and this has nothing to do with being a no life."

But a top YouTube comment keeps him in touch with the reality for people whose jobs don't require them to play Diablo 4: "What you did in 17h, I will take a month to do."

As Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred gets off to a poor start with login issues, queues, and bugs, Blizzard promises to get the fixes out as fans lose patience.

Diablo 4's new Lord of Hatred DLC might have had a shaky start thanks to long initial login queues and bugs, but Blizzard has been on the case with hotfix aimed at ironing out a progression blocker and fixing the missing Talisman tab.

The first hotfix – which arrived yesterday – takes aim at two slightly broken quests. The first is related to the aforementioned missing Talisman tab – a problem some players reported encountering at launch.

Community manager Rich 'filthierich' Bantegui explains in a post: "Fixed an issue where if the Last of the Horadrim quest was completed in a party, only one party member would be credited with completion and the Talisman tab would not unlock for other party members." Teamwork clearly seems to have been the issue here, as Blizzard previously advised anyone affected to complete the quest "solo on an alternate character" to get around the bug.

The other quest issue addressed in hotfix 1 relates to "The Soil, The Seed, the Fruit," which previously had a bug that could stop you progressing through it. Notably, the "She Sleeps Within You" quest – which was quickly highlighted as having a similar problem when the expansion first released – hasn't been fixed yet, but Blizzard is aware of the bug and is planning to address it.

Blizzard has definitely been busy, though, as a second hotfix has landed to fix more problems in Diablo 4 version 3.01. Specifically, it makes tweaks to two Necromancer skills, as well as the health of certain monsters. As Bantegui writes, "the Schadenfreude variant for Iron Maiden and the Bramble Variant for Bone Prison did far more damage than intended," so those have been adjusted, and "various monsters, such as Pangs of Duriel and Infernal Prison, had much higher health values than intended," so those will be lower now, too.

The change to Bone Prison seems fairly significant, too. One player on the D4Necromancer subreddit notes that they were previously "doing 705m at paragon 95" with the skill, but after the hotfix, they "do like 205k and can't kill shizzle." Certainly unfortunate for them, but it was clearly capable of doing far more than Blizzard had in mind.

Of course, the devs aren't done just yet, but this is a solid start as far as bug fixes go, particularly with the missing Talisman tab. After all, that's a new system introduced for Lord of Hatred, so it'd be rather unfortunate if folks couldn't actually unlock it properly. My condolences to the Necromancer players who were enjoying their broken skills, though.

Diablo 4 needs "aspirational content" to challenge players, director agrees, but don't discredit more casual gameplay like fishing.

Diablo 4 associate game director Zaven Haroutunian knows the action role-playing game should feature a compelling amount of "aspirational content" to keep players interested, but the challenge should never outweigh the intrigue.

He tells Diablo 4 YouTuber Rhykker during an interview breaking down the game's new Lord of Hatred expansion, "I think the game needs aspirational content" – which Rhykker worries "has been made accessible to the everyman." Haroutunian counters that, "I don't think that content, whatever it is, should present itself as the sole, or true, completion point."

Haroutunian astutely observes that, "If you present the whole game in this way, where you say, 'And the ultimate challenge is right there,' and everyone looks at that, and they rightfully expect to be able to reach it, right? Like if you present the entire game as this perfectly, linear straight path, then I'm going to expect, as a player, well, the things I'm doing in the path from where I am to where I'm going is going to prepare me for something I'm going to have to do there, right? Video game 101. It's just, like, a thing."

But, from developer Blizzard's perspective, this natural urge to march in a line becomes a problem when something in Diablo 4 is either harder or much easier than its developers intended. When this happens, it's time to rebalance – which does make some aspects of Diablo 4 more welcoming to an average skill-level player, as Rhykker says. But if Blizzard chases punishing gameplay over everything, "everything else we make afterwards has to bend in service to it as an outlier," says Haroutunian.

"What we've tried to do is as much as possible in Lord of Hatred is create opportunities for players to make their own goals, their own aspirational goals," Haroutunian continues to say about the expansion, which Blizzard is currently running through the dishwasher to fix its minor launch messes, like crazy login queues and bugs.

"I guarantee you there's a bunch of people who are motivated to find every fish," Haroutunian says in reference to Diablo 4's new fishing mini-game. And it seems like he's right. While some hardcore horde killers on Reddit can't imagine why Diablo 4 now features fishing (though I imagine even demons could benefit from a salmon's omega-3), one reply explains elegantly: "Big game that's fun for different reasons to different people."

Haroutunian would be proud of this response. It defines his egalitarian approach to game design, as he continues to tell Rhykker, "There's stuff in the game for all sorts of player types, which means not everything has to be for everyone. And that's great. Like, to me, that's very healthy."

Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred is so big that Blizzard decided the new season doesn't need its own theme, but it will include "major system upgrades."

Diablo 4's new Lord of Hatred DLC is here, but – perhaps to the surprise of no one – its initial launch hasn't exactly been the smoothest.

It didn't take long after the DLC's release for a telling statement to come from Blizzard on the official Diablo Twitter account. "We're aware that some players are currently experiencing issues accessing Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred," it said. "The team is actively investigating and working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We'll share updates here as we have them." And it only takes a quick glimpse at the likes of Reddit and Twitter to see why – many folks were stuck in lengthy login queues, unable to access Lord of Hatred at all.

"Has Blizzard ever had a successful launch of anything?" one unlucky player asks on the Diablo subreddit, sharing a screenshot of their painful 52-minute wait. "Billion dollar company and this happens every time they launch anything. Worse, I was actually playing when it kicked me out." Another responds: "Was just in the opening cutscene just to get kicked and put into a 105-minute queue." Yikes.

Has Blizzard ever had a successful launch of anything? from r/Diablo

Unfortunately, lengthy queues haven't been the only issue. Others have been facing the annoying error code 300008, timing out their login attempts, and per Icy Veins, some have found the Talisman tab mysteriously missing, a problem Blizzard says will be "resolved in an upcoming update" (though for now, "players can resolve this by completing the quest solo on an alternate character").

Blizzard is also aware that Xbox users may not see their "Deluxe Edition and select Platinum products" available in-game, and advises them to go to the Xbox storefront to claim them, and knows that there's a progression blocker in the "She Sleeps Within You" quest, which it advises dealing with by quitting, reloading your character, and restarting the quest until it has an actual fix available. "We appreciate your patience with this," it adds.

At the very least, it should be noted that not everyone has been afflicted with login queue issues – one player on Reddit notes that they've been "blessed with hardly any issues on PS5 or PC," even wondering if this could be "the best Diablo launch ever" for Blizzard.

Around a couple of hours after Blizzard's statement about the game's queues, the devs shared an update saying that "we've made progress on the access issues impacting some Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred players," noting that "affected players should begin seeing improvement as fixes roll out," and it seems that was a success for some. "Literally by 5PM (1 hour after launch) they had fixed the server issues and they've been butter since. So yeah, this is a great launch," one fan says on Reddit.

With that said, it doesn't appear that Lord of Hatred's launch struggles are over. Even aside from the aforementioned quest progression bug and Xbox Deluxe Edition issue, more recent posts from the last couple of hours still show some players are struggling to log in, with one suggesting that the "servers are getting overloaded again."

At this point, it's safe to say that Diablo fans are used to this – some have even jokingly been discussing their favorite login error screens – but, once again, it's definitely dampening the launch, and frustrating those who were eager to dive in as soon as the DLC became available.

Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred is so big that Blizzard decided the new season doesn't need its own theme, but it will include "major system upgrades."