One of the marquee features of World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion The War Within is its hero talent trees, an extra layer of icing to Dragonflight’s talent rework cake. They’re flavourful, themed additions to your core abilities that are meant to be “an evergreen form of character progression”. Blizzard’s been harvesting feedback in the run-up […]
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Diablo 4 sorcerer build vomits up so many fireballs you need the minimap to see where you’re going
Sorcerers are Diablo 4’s ultimate chameleons with the number of builds they have capable of crushing the RPG’s upcoming leaderboards. Last time, it was a lightning build that was so fast it made the game a slideshow, and now it’s a build that fills your screen with bouncy fireballs. Diablo 4 streamer Rob2628 is back […]
Read MoreConversations from the Dice Awards green room
Last week, the luminaries of the game industry accepted awards on stage at the Dice Awards event in Las Vegas before hundreds of their peers. The message from Larian Studios, which made the Game of the Year — Baldur’s Gate 3 — was particularly appropriate amid the opulence of the event. “Many, many people were […]
Read MoreOverwatch fans call for boycott and recast after Pharah voice actor calls to ‘free Palestine from Hamas’
Overwatch fans are calling for the recasting of Pharah—one of the game’s lineup of DPS heroes—following comments on the current situation in Israel and Palestine made by her voice actor, Jen Cohn, in a TikTok and YouTube livestream. In response to viewers commenting “free Palestine” in the chat of one of her Ask Bird Mom […]
Read MoreDPS heroes rule Overwatch 2 now, but Blizzard isn’t ready to nerf their controversial new ability quite yet
Play a single match of Overwatch 2’s newest season and you’ll know immediately just how powerful DPS are now. Their new role passive reduces the healing their targets receive, which has had a huge impact on how a typical Overwatch team fight plays out. Support and tanks get shredded and the game’s meta has started […]
Read MoreThe server tech that saved WoW 10 years ago is causing problems for Classic’s Season of Discovery, dev reveals: ‘a layer is actually just sharding with a lot of sticky tape’
The second season of WoW classic’s Season of Discovery (SoD) is live—and the layers are acting up again, this time in Stranglethorn Vale (STV). For the uninitiated, this season brings Blood Moons to STV: 30-minute PvP brawls that tick around every three hours. The main issue? The bouncers at the door aren’t great at their […]
Read MoreA group of Diablo 4 masterminds made a sorcerer build that zooms through dungeons in under 2 minutes
With Diablo 4’s leaderboards update on the horizon, players are brainstorming what kind of builds will go the fastest. A group of expert build crafters might already have the answer: a sorcerer build that teleports through dungeons so fast that it barely looks like you’re playing Diablo anymore. Diablo 4 streamer Rob2628, along with sorcerer […]
Read MoreIf you’re wondering why Diablo 4 has a horse for sale with $65 of premium currency stuck to it, let me introduce you to ‘price anchoring’
If you’ve looked at the Diablo 4 store and wondered why you can’t buy something without it being part of a bundle, I regret to inform you that it’s super on purpose. I talked about this earlier in the week, regarding a set of class-locked portal recolours going for $20 (with a mandatory $10 purchase […]
Read MoreDiablo 4 dataminer finds out why its most powerful items are impossibly rare and how little Blizzard’s recent fix did to change that
Lothrik, a dataminer who previously made accurate build planners before Diablo 4 was out, has released a sheet of data that supposedly shows the likelihood you’ll find an Über Unique in the wild. Blizzard hasn’t confirmed whether the data is correct, but the numbers line up with D4 Craft’s datamined info from last year. Diablo […]
Read MoreThe first Activision Blizzard game to debut on Game Pass will be Diablo 4
The first Activision Blizzard game to come to Game Pass will be Diablo 4, Microsoft announced today as part of its Xbox business update podcast. The action RPG will be available for anyone who is subscribed to the service starting on March 28. When Microsoft bought ZeniMax in 2021, it dropped 13 Bethesda games on […]
Read MoreThe first Activision Blizzard game on Game Pass will be Diablo 4
The first Activision Blizzard game to come to Game Pass will be Diablo 4, Microsoft announced today as part of its Xbox business update podcast. The action RPG will be available for anyone who is subscribed to the service starting on March 28. When Microsoft bought ZeniMax in 2021, it dropped 13 Bethesda games on […]
Read More‘Aiming is optional now’: Overwatch 2’s bigger bullets divide players as they adjust to Blizzard’s season 9 rework
In Overwatch 2’s newest season, every hero shoots bigger bullets and it’s driving players mad as they watch clips of the most egregious examples. It was hard to visualize just how much Blizzard had increased the size of weapon projectiles in Overwatch 2’s newest season until a bunch of people started firing at a Tracer […]
Read MoreThe patch Diablo 4 players hoped would fix its worst endgame grind hasn’t fixed its worst endgame grind
Diablo 4’s newest patch could’ve been Blizzard’s solution to an endgame that mostly consists of grinding a single boss for the best loot, but it doesn’t seem like it went far enough. Among a list of bug fixes, patch 1.3.2 brings two changes aimed at making it easier to get Diablo 4’s most powerful items, […]
Read MoreWorld of Warcraft’s lead storyteller quietly left Blizzard last fall: ‘I’ve felt the itch to stretch my creativity in new directions’
The World of Warcraft community discovered almost by accident recently that the lead creator of the game’s stories has quietly left Blizzard. Warcraft narrative director Steve Danuser’s departure wasn’t announced, but rather discovered by fans who noticed an update to his LinkedIn page that sets the end of his Blizzard employment to last November, right […]
Read MoreWorld of Warcraft’s subscription is about to get almost 3,000% more expensive in Argentina—and it’ll ‘only get worse with inflation’
Last month, Argentinian World of Warcraft players found a nasty surprise in their inbox—an email from Blizzard announcing two separate price hikes to their World of Warcraft subscriptions, making the game prohibitively expensive. Firstly, though, some context is in order. Last November, fellow PC Gamer writer Joshua Wolens covered the explosive increase of Steam prices […]
Read MoreSome class-locked portal reskins? That’ll be $20, please—Diablo 4’s hellish microtransactions continue to sting
Microtransactions in fully-priced games are (unfortunately) here to stay for as long as they keep working—that’s a bitter pill I’ve swallowed at this point, though every now and then something comes along to make it sting all over again. As is the case with Diablo 4’s recent “Dark Pathways” pack, which wants you to shell […]
Read MoreBlizzard finally has a solution for the unlucky Diablo 4 players with Uber Uniques they don’t want
Hours of grinding for Diablo 4’s rarest and most powerful items, Uber Uniques, won’t guarantee you’ll get the one you actually want. I’m in this situation right now. I’ve killed the boss who drops them almost 100 times and he refuses to give me the one I need. But next week, my bad luck with […]
Read MoreDiablo 2 speedrunner effortlessly trolls audience by breezily selling ultra-rare rune it’s taken others 20 years to find
Your wedding day, the birth of a child: life is full of precious moments, but let’s be real, nothing compares to the narcotic thrill of trolling a helpless audience. No one knows that better than Kano, a Diablo 2 Resurrected speedrunner who recently subjected his viewers to emotional whiplash so severe it was probably illegal. […]
Read MoreFormer Overwatch 2 artist alleges shocking mistreatment by Blizzard management: ‘I spent most of a year stressed out of my mind’
Blizzard’s reputation has taken a pummelling over the last few years. In 2021, horrifying descriptions of the company’s toxic workplace culture spilled onto the Internet, after a lawsuit was filed by California’s Department of Fair Employment regarding “unlawful harassment, discrimination, and retaliation”. Following the lawsuit, Blizzard made extensive promises about how they were going to […]
Read MoreDiablo 4’s forgettable XP boost event has me crossing my fingers that its upcoming leaderboards won’t be as dull
Diablo 4’s Lunar New Year event doesn’t feel like an event at all. The promised cosmetic rewards take about an hour to earn and trying to find the XP-boosting Lunar Shrines is harder than trying to find an Uber Unique. It’s as if the event was designed for the Diablo 4 that existed before season […]
Read MoreBlizzard reveals a new era of Overwatch 2: Bigger health bars, self-healing, and a reworked Competitive mode
The list of changes coming to Overwatch 2 next week are bigger than anything Blizzard has done since the introduction of 5v5. In some ways, it’s a new era for the hero shooter that has struggled to find its footing in the year since its release. To start, Blizzard is increasing health pools across the […]
Read MoreAll WoW Season of Discovery Phase 2 runes
World of Warcraft Classic’s Season of Discovery Phase 2 launch takes players from level 25 to 40–and also opens up new class runes, which give all of WoW Classic SoD players new abilities to experiment with. These runes come from a combination of drops from mobs, ground spawns and quests. Once collected, they work the […]
Read MoreEvery Phase 2 class quest in WoW Classic: Season of Discovery
As World of Warcraft Classic’s wild Season of Discovery moves into Phase 2, a slew of class quests arrive alongside the new level-40 character cap. These longer questlines are only available to specific classes, and they award major items and abilities. Warlocks get their demons and the fiery Felsteed mount, Shamans get new totems, and […]
Read MoreEverything you can do in WoW Season of Discovery Phase 2
World of Warcraft Classic’s wacky Season of Discovery servers has finally hit Phase 2, and with that advance comes an avalanche of new content. WoW players will match up against each other in PVP contests and new dungeons, a new raid and new quests as they move from level 25 to the new cap of […]
Read MoreThe impact of 16,000 games industry layoffs, in one chart
Blizzard’s Unannounced Survival Game team, laid off in January 2024. Photo via a developer who asked to remain anonymous. (Image credit: Blizzard Survival Game team) The scale of the past year of videogame layoffs is a hard thing to wrap your head around. We’re confronted with more big numbers almost every week: the latest “regrettable” […]
Read MoreHow to complete Loving Yourself, Your Way in World of Warcraft
Loving Yourself, Your Way is a daily quest you can pick up during World of Warcraft‘s annual Love is in the Air event. It gives you three options, so you can essentially choose how to complete it, but the one that appears to be the easiest can cause you trouble if you don’t do it […]
Read MoreBlizzard dares its richest World of Warcraft players to pour 70K gold down the drain for a meager achievement
A new achievement tied to World of Warcraft’s annual Valentine’s Day-themed event might be one of the most transparent gold sinks in the MMO’s history. For the next two weeks, players who are carrying around 70,000 gold, can toss it straight into the void for 10 achievement points and the sting of being played. To […]
Read MoreCatapult your Diablo 4 character straight into godhood with Blizzard’s bonus XP event next week
The latest Diablo 4 season might have the fastest way to earn XP ever, but Blizzard is going to let you make it even faster next week. On February 6, Diablo 4’s Lunar Awakening event will sprinkle Sanctuary, and its dungeons, with unique Shrines that boost your XP gains by 50% for 30 seconds when […]
Read MoreDiablo 4’s little robot spider is actually an apex predator who can solo bosses, and it’s about to get even stronger
Diablo 4’s hardest bosses have a new threat and, surprisingly, it’s not a barbarian with a giant hammer. It’s the free robot spider pet that everyone thought was useless before Blizzard dropped an emergency patch to help level it up. Now it’s crushing endgame bosses for billions of damage, and tomorrow it’s going to do […]
Read MoreWoW’s experimental ban on ‘GDKP’ raids in Season of Discovery has set the community on fire—here’s why
As announced by Blizzard in its Season of Discovery Phase 2 post, gold dragon kill points (GDKP) raids in World of Warcraft Classic are going the way of the dodo on February 8. The dev team wants to “try things without this type of transaction taking place”—that’s a huge experiment, considering how GDKP raids have […]
Read MoreDiablo 4 igneous core: How to farm season 3 boss materials
Diablo 4’s newest boss summoning item, Igneous Core, is your ticket to the Vault of the Loom and its boss: the Echo of Malphas. The robotic demon drops powerful loot for you and your construct companion, but takes a bit of preparation. If you’re near level 100 and are in world tier 4, you’ll need […]
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