Blizzard Entertainment: Last News

Blizzard Entertainment has announced another free trial for Diablo 4 – and this time, users are able to play until they hit level 20.In order to get involved, PC players should download and install Battle.net, Blizzard Entertainment’s own online digital distribution platform.

Overwatch 2 kicks off its crossover with ’90s sci-fi anime Cowboy Bebop today (March 7), we caught up with Overwatch art director Dion Rogers to learn more about the combination.Though this is Blizzard’s first Cowboy Bebop crossover, Rogers told NME that the team behind Overwatch are “huge fans” of the anime, and it inspired some of the game’s visuals during development.“Cowboy Bebop has an amazing art style blending various artistic influences [including] film noir, westerns and science fiction,” shared Rogers. “The anime’s visuals mix futuristic technology with a world that feels lived-in and with stylized characters that have real human emotions.”“Our game has a nice mix of east meets west art style, which helps fit the Cowboy Bebop aesthetics while maintaining the readability of our heroes,” they added.

Diablo 4 is free to play for all Xbox players as part of the platform’s Free Play Days, alongside Hokko Life, Lawn Mowing Simulator and NBA 2K24.Though Hokko Life, Lawn Mowing Simulator and NBA 2K24 require an active Xbox Game Pass Core or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to play them for free, Diablo 4 is available for all Xbox players.However, Diablo 4 is limited to 10 hours of play, which is a little less than halfway through the story should the player focus only on the main missions.Owing to the open world structure of the game, exploration of Sanctuary and its side missions is encouraged and will offer players a sense of what the entire game is like.Additionally, multiplayer is possible in the free timed trial and all progress achieved in those 10 hours will transfer over to the full game if the player chooses to purchase.All four games are available between October 19 and October 22.

Blizzard Entertainment has announced an upcoming Overwatch 2 event in collaboration with K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM.Today (October 19 KST), the Overwatch 2 developer announced the upcoming crossover event with LE SSERAFIM. It’ll kick off with the release of the girl group’s upcoming English-language single, ‘Perfect Night’, on October 26 at 9pm PDT.The collaboration will also feature a new game mode, inspired by LE SSERAFIM, as well as exclusive in-game items and Legendary hero skins.

Diablo 4 is sitting at a “mixed” rating from player reviews on Steam following its launch on October 17.Blizzard Entertainment previously announced the game would arrive on Steam at the same time as the Season Of Blood, the second season for the game since its release in June.Season Of Blood added a new narrative chapter through the onslaught of a vampiric invasion of Sanctuary, and it is also the vehicle with which the developer will optimise Diablo 4 in a “five-point strategy”.Yet, it appeared that Steam players were not that impressed with the improved Diablo 4. Of the almost 500 player reviews that have been submitted, over half of them are negative, leading to an overall “mixed” rating for the game.Issues in the end game experience were a common theme in these reviews, as well as criticism of microtransactions and the offerings in the game’s battle pass.Others used their reviews as an opportunity to petition for a Diablo 2 Resurrected release on Steam as it is exclusive to Battle.net for PC players.In documents from the lawsuit between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission, it was concluded exclusivity to Battle.net actually acts as a detriment to the number of monthly active users in the game.Positive Steam reviews of Diablo 4 conceded that the game is entertaining but there are a number of missteps like the complexity of the game.“If you want a new ‘turn your brain off and blow up demons’ game, it’s already in a really good state for that.

Blizzard Entertainment has shared how it will overhaul Diablo 4 through game changes in Season Of Blood to ensure that fan feedback has been heard.While Diablo 4 was off to a strong start in June, patch 1.1.0 led to significant decreases in player damage output and capabilities in what was already a challenging game to play.The responses from fans were so disastrous that Diablo 4 developers held an emergency Campfire Chat – a livestreamed event where the team run through the latest changes to the game – in July in order to apologise.Though the sentiment towards Diablo 4 from its fans has been gradually getting warmer and warmer, Blizzard Entertainment wanted them to know that the feedback has been actually acted upon in the upcoming Season Of Blood. Season Of Blood, which kicks off on October 17, will involve a “five point strategy” that “[focuses] on addressing player feedback and making systemic improvements”, as said in the most recent Campfire Chat.The five points are “update elemental resistances”, “make uniques more exciting and impactful”, “class improvements to address commonly talked about issues”, “update damage buckets” and ensuring that all of these changes feel like bonuses to players.Community lead Adam Fletcher and designers Adam Jackson and Charles Dunn talked through these points, starting with the fact that resistances will now be additive up to a 70 per cent limit in Season Of Blood. Furthermore, uniques have been subject to a “giant pass” that has altered almost every unique in Diablo 4 with new statistics and larger ranges, for example.The full list of changes in patch 1.2.0 are available on Blizzard Entertainment’s website.In other gaming news, Rocket League players were dismayed to discover that

Elon Musk has streamed Diablo 4 through X in an effort to show off his website’s capabilities for gaming streams as well as the rest of his goals for the revamped social media site.Per PCGamer, Musk appeared on a verified account named “cyb3rgam3r420” to share a session of him completing a tier 69 nightmare dungeon with his level 100 werewolf druid on October 2. The beginning was besieged with technical issues which were resolved within 15 minutes of the start of the stream, however, the stream stayed live for around 50 minutes all in all.Musk chatted to the audience about the druid build that he was using in the dungeon and invited players to try to kill his character in the PvP arena of Diablo 4.The business magnate had previously said that he wanted to stream “some silly stuff” to test the livestream scaling of X on September 27, but cancelled because work was proving problematic, and so he rescheduled.Then, the second stream of Diablo 4 featuring Musk completing a tier 100 nightmare dungeon was hosted on his official account for approximately 40 minutes, and it was not smooth sailing.Assumedly thanks to the significant increase in traffic to the stream as opposed to the other account, the video output struggled with flickering, frame rate issues and audio cutting in and out.His voice also sounded a lot higher as a result of a technical trouble with the stream making him “sound like a chipmunk”, he joked.Elsewhere, news broke yesterday (October 3) that Grimes is supposedly suing Musk for the custody of their third child, Techno Mechanicus.

Elon Musk has revealed that Amber Heard cosplayed as Overwatch hero Mercy to role-play for him.Musk and Heard dated in 2016 and 2017, however, Walter Isaacson’s biography of the SpaceX CEO corroborates the claim that he had pursued her since 2012.Musk liked the fact that Heard looked like Overwatch‘s Mercy, a blonde female support character who sports angelic wings attached to her battle suit and a halo-esque hairpiece. While she was filming Aquaman in Australia in 2017, Musk flew out to see Heard and she greeted him by kissing him on the cheek.“[Musk] told her that she reminded him of Mercy, his favourite character in […] Overwatch, so she spent two months designing and commissioning a head-to-toe costume so she could role-play for him,” Isaacson wrote.Heard wasn’t out of her depth when it came to the concept of cosplaying as a fictional character for a romantic partner.

Blizzard Entertainment announced that Diablo 4 will benefit from annual expansions alongside its quarterly seasons to retain player excitement for the game.In an interview with Dexerto, general manager Rod Fergusson replied to the question of how long will the seasonal additions will go on for with: “How long is a piece of string?”“It’s years and years. That’s the thing we’re focused on,” he clarified.

Blizzard Entertainment is raising funds with the help of Mila Kunis to support those in Ukraine through a new pack of companion pets for World of Warcraft. Sunny the golden retriever and Flurky the murloc are the new pets, and are yellow and blue to reflect the colours of the flag of Ukraine.

Blizzard Entertainment revealed that Overwatch 2 is on its way to Steam as the first of a selection of its games that will leap over to the platform.Originally, Overwatch 2 was only available for PC through Blizzard’s own digital distribution service, Battle.net. “As we’ve evolved, the industry has evolved too – gaming is no longer just for specific communities as it was when Battle.net launched over two decades ago,” read a press release on the announcement.In order to “break down barriers” for new and veteran Overwatch 2 players, the hero shooter will launch on Steam on August 10.

Diablo franchise at Blizzard, has shared that not all classes in Diablo 4 should feel equally balanced at all points.Diablo 4 kicked off its first beta on Friday (March 17), giving players an opportunity to play three of the game’s classes before the game’s next open beta on March 24.While two classes – Necromancer and Druid – are yet to be unlocked for players, those who took part in the early beta got to try out the Sorcerer, Rogue and Barbarian classes.However, a number of social media posts and threads on the game’s subreddit have claimed that Diablo 4‘s Barbarian class feels much weaker than its counterparts.Speaking to NME‘s Jake Tucker, Fergusson acknowledged that balancing would play a larger part in Diablo 4 since the game will place more emphasis on player versus player (PvP) interactions.However, Fergusson shared that although classes should feel balanced to play against each other, not every class should feel as powerful at the same time as others.“There is a lot of balance there, but the trick around balance is that it’s a balance over time — not a balance of the moment,” shared Fergusson. “Not all classes at level five should have the same power.”“Due to the enchantment specialisation, Sorcerers will have the most skills of any class because [with] Barbarians having four weapons, they will have the most legendary slots of any class.

Activision Blizzard suggests that Diablo 4 may include microtransactions.The apparent survey was posted to the Diablo 4 subreddit in German but was helpfully translated to English by user BellasaurusRawr, and it is mainly focused on pricing (via PCGamesN).The survey includes mentions of different types of microtransactions that may appear in the final product. It features some basic Diablo 4 assets as well and explains which version of the game will come with extra content, while also asking fans what they’re most likely to purchase.For example, the optional bundles mainly consist of character armour, some of which are pictured in the survey, as well as a variety of different horse mounts – a first for the series, and extra cosmetics like back ornaments.The design descriptions for the character armour explain that players will receive a total of five skins, one for each Diablo 4 class.There’s also the mention of a battle pass with “premium rewards for playing,” but these will only be “cosmetic,” as well as an Early Access period for purchasing specific bundles which will give consumers seven days to play before release, or two days depending on the version.An in-game currency called Platinum is included too, which will be used for purchasing cosmetic items from the in-game store.

Blizzard has confirmed that World Of Warcraft: Wrath Of The Lich King Classic will release in September.Earlier this month the release date was revealed by Blizzard, only for the proper announcement to come yesterday (July 25) with a new trailer. Wrath Of The Lich King Classic will now (officially) be releasing on September 26 this year.Check out the date announcement trailer below:The re-release of the 2008 expansion will take place at 3PM PDT globally, or 11PM BST / 6PM PT.

Diablo Immortal have come under fire, after players have calculated that completely gearing out a character’s stats could cost fans £87,568.Since Diablo Immortal launched earlier in the year, players have levelled criticism at developer Blizzard Entertainment‘s implementation of microtransactions in the game.As the game has been out for several days, some players have now calculated what they say is the true cost of completely maxing out a character’s stats in Diablo Immortal.The main issue stems from Legendary Gems, a premium in-game currency which is used to upgrade stats.

Warcraft 3: Reforged will be announced sometime in June.That’s according to Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra, who stated on Twitter that new information will be coming next month (via, VGC).You'll hear from them soon (in June).— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) May 28, 2022The remaster of Warcraft 3: Reforged was released for PC in January 2020, but attracted widespread criticism for its incredibly buggy state at launch.The game Warcraft 3: Reforged featured upgraded character models and environments, as well as integration with Battle.Net.But the remaster was missing critical features, including support for clans and ladders.In May 2020, Blizzard pledged to fix the game, “building a plan to deliver on our next steps.” While a number of fixes were made to the game, just a few months later, the game stopped receiving updates completely.Hopefully, the response from Ybarra is an indication that Blizzard is newly re-committed to supporting the game.Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos – which Warcraft 3: Reforged is a remaster of – was released back in 2002 and received critical acclaim. The first Warcraft game to be rendered in three dimensions, it quickly became a game of huge cultural significance for the internet age.The game was a commercial success, selling 4.4million copies worldwide, and spurred the release of an expansion pack: Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne.But Blizzard has been stretched thin over recent years, with much of the development effort spent supporting Overwatch as a live service game and in the development of Overwatch 2.In other news, someone has datamined Evil Dead: The Game and has found files that suggest Ruby Knowby, a villain from Ash vs.

World Of Warcraft: Shadowlands‘ upcoming patch, Horde and Alliance members will be able to play together.Patch 9.2.5 is scheduled to arrive next week (May 31) and for the first time since the massively multiplayer online game (MMO) launched, players of opposite factions will be able to join together in the same party to complete dungeons and raids (via, PC Gamer).As a development update from January explains, players will be able to play together in PvP using matchmaking or inviting each other via BattleTags. Pre-made Groups in the Group Finder listings for Mythic dungeons, raids, or rated arenas will be open to both Horde and Alliance players, though the group leader may choose to restrict the listing to same-faction applicants if they wish.However, Guilds will remain single-faction, and random matchmade activities like Heroic dungeons, Skirmishes, or Random Battlegrounds will all remain same-faction as well.

World Of Warcraft: Wrath Of The Lich King Classic expansion has outlined how the game’s barbershop will be improved to add more inclusive customisation options.In an interview with PCGamesN, World Of Warcraft Classic lead producer Holly Longdale talked about how Blizzard Entertainment wants to keep in the spirit of the game’s original customisation options, but not be limited by the choices that were on offer when the expansion originally launched in 2008.“We knew we were going to bring the barbershop back, but when we were looking at it, it was literally a barbershop – you could only change your hair,” said Longdale.Back in the original Wrath Of The Lich King expansion, multiple barbershops were placed into the world, and here players could change their hair style, hair colour and facial features like beards and horns.“We’re not tied to that technical limitation that existed in 2008, so we looked at the spirit of what the barbershop was intended to do, which is to allow you to express yourself as you want to.”When the revamped World Of Warcraft Classic expansion launches this year, players will also be able to change their face and gender at the barbershop, for a small gold fee.Longdale also added that more recent additions, like when Black and Asian faces came to Shadowlands, are on the team’s list of customisation options to include.“One hundred percent, we want to invest in that. There’s a lot technically that we have to do to be able to bring that into Classic, but yeah, absolutely.” she said.“It may not be at launch, but that’s what we want to do.

Overwatch 2 public beta, and developer Blizzard Entertainment has provided prospective players with all the relevant information.In a news post yesterday (April 25) Blizzard outlined what can expect, saying that “selected players” who’ve opted-in (which can be done here) for the beta will start receiving invites starting today at 7PM UK time (11AM PT). More invitations may be sent out further into the beta test, which ends on May 17.All players who want to get in on the beta will need to have Overwatch installed on their PC, as this platform is the only one currently running the beta.

Blizzard developers have raised £18.4million ($25million USD) to create a real-time strategy (RTS) game built with Unreal Engine 5.The latest round of funding for Frost Giant Studios has raised £18.4million on the premise of creating an “epic” RTS game that’s set to be announced later this year.The studio was founded by Tim Campbell, the lead campaign designer for Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, as well as Tim Morten, who served as production director for StarCraft 2.As IGN reports, Frost Giant Studios has currently raised a total of £25.6million ($34.7million USD) to go toward its debut game. The latest round of funding has seen interest from some big names in gaming, as PUBG publisher Kakao Games and League Of Legends developer Riot Games have both pitched in funds.Speaking to IGN, Morten said “this funding gives us the runway we need to ship the game we’ve envisioned,” and added that “this funding is a testament that the appetite for RTS remains strong in the global gaming community and we are encouraged to have leading companies like Kakao Games believe in what we’re building and supporting our journey.”The funding will be reportedly used to recruit a further 20 people, find a new office, and pay for more ambitious technology to be used in the game.

Blizzard Entertainment has shared an update on the development of Diablo 4.In a new Blizzard blog post, the developers confirmed that the team is still working on new content and systems for the game, and have also “made big strides” with every build containing a host of “expanded content, new art, balance changes, and other iterations.”Lead Systems Designer Joe Piepiora went on to address itemisation, confirming the return of +Skills on items, a new way to interact with legendary powers, and early work on targeted drops.