Blizzard plans to take its anti-cheating efforts to a new level and will start automatically ending matches where a cheater is detected. The change was revealed in Blizzard's July 2019 developer update, where the game's director Jeff Kaplan explained how the new anti-cheating effort will work. Though game matches will automatically end, regular players who weren't cheating won't be penalized.
If you're a Blizzard fan, then there's a good chance you're already familiar with CarBot Animations. The company, founded by animator Jonathan Burton, has made a number of animated video series about many of Blizzard's properties, including World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Heroes of the Storm, and StarCraft. Now, Blizzard is putting Burton's animations front and center with an overhaul add-on for StarCraft Remastered called StarCraft: Cartooned.
Given Overwatch's popularity, it isn't really a shock to see Blizzard strike various merchandising deals with other companies. We've seen Overwatch NERF blasters and cereal, along with Overwatch-themed LEGO sets. Today, LEGO revealed two more incoming Overwatch sets - one featuring Junkrat and Roadhog and the other featuring Wrecking Ball.
Two of Hearthstone's most powerful cards, Vanish and Mind Blast, will soon head for the Hall of Fame. These cards have been abnormally powerful in the most basic sense of the phrase since I started playing the game - they're so good, they'd be in almost every deck against which I played, regardless of intent. They were so powerful, it would seem, that the creators of Hearthstone have decided they needed to be retired.
It's been quite some time since we last heard from the StarCraft franchise in any meaningful way - the final expansion for StarCraft 2, Legacy of the Void, launched back in 2015 - and it looks like we may be waiting even longer. Rumor has it that Blizzard has canceled a StarCraft first-person shooter it secretly had in development so it could divert more resources to other franchises.
As teased over the weekend, Overwatch's big anniversary event is back and it's kicking off today. The update containing the anniversary event went live a little while ago, so from today until June 10th, you'll be able to play through seasonal brawls from events past and unlock a ton of skins and other cosmetics. In that way, these anniversary events are something akin to a greatest hits rundown for Overwatch.
Believe it or not, Overwatch is about to turn three years old. As it does every year on the anniversary of its launch, Blizzard will be hosting an in-game event that'll see various seasonal modes return for the duration. Of course, this is also a good chance for you to unlock some skins that you may have missed during previous events, so if you're a relatively new player, the anniversary event will be a chance to play catch up when it comes to cosmetics.
Though World of Warcraft Classic won't be widely available until later this year, many players received access to the game via its beta launch last week. Days later, Blizzard has published a list of non-issues that players keep reporting as bugs, advising these players that 'the nature' of the game 'sometimes invokes different memories for different players...' Those discrepancies have resulted in some players perceiving normal gameplay as buggy.
The Blizzard faithful have been waiting for World of Warcraft Classic to get a release for quite some time. WoW Classic was first revealed back at BlizzCon 2017, and ever since then, Blizzard has stuck to a rather vague "summer 2019" release date. Today the long wait finally ended, with Blizzard revealing that World of Warcraft Classic will be out in August.
This morning Hearthstone's latest expansion Rise of Shadows went live around the world. This event and change-over went live at 10AM Pacific Time, Noon Central Time. This update also marks the end of the Year of the Raven and begins the Year of the Dragon! This is easily the biggest changing of the guard for Hearthstone since... the game switched to Raven.
Well, that was fast: it was only a few weeks ago that Blizzard brought the original Diablo to GOG, saying at the time that digital releases of Warcraft and Warcraft 2 would follow. Today is the big day apparently, because both titles have appeared on GOG. This marks the first time either game has been available digitally, so if you've got a nostalgic itch you need to scratch, you can now do so without having to track down a game disc first.
The Hearthstone expansion "Rise of Shadows" has a quickly impending release date, and today we're getting to know what the set will contain. Inside the mix provided by this set are a couple new sorts of cards, new artwork, and new 1-player content. But what I'm most interested in right now is the return of some cards and features in the form of "callbacks."