The company FabZat has announced a new collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment that allows it to 3D-print phone cases featuring artwork from the game Hearthstone. Any fan can use FabZat's website to design their own Hearthstone phone case, choosing from a handful of art options for the back of the shell, as well as various card options for the front of the case.
Blizzard had some big Heroes of the Storm announcements to make during today's Heroes Global Championship matches. The next heroes coming to the game both come from Overwatch: the sniper Ana and the explosives enthusiast Junkrat. They won't be alone, either, as Blizzard also revealed a bunch of new skins and a new battleground modeled after Overwatch's Volskaya Industries.
Blizzard is giving everyone who owns a gaming PC, Xbox One, or PlayStation 4 the opportunity to play its highly popular Overwatch game for free. This marks the title's latest free-play weekend, following the free-play weekend Blizzard introduced back in May of this year and late in 2016. Take note, though, that the free play isn't this weekend, but the next one after.
Blizzard has announced the opening of a new esports arena located in Los Angeles, California. The arena is designed to host various major esporting events, including more than one at a time when applicable. The venue is located in Burbank, and it'll be home to its first big event this upcoming October when it hosts the Summer Championship for the Hearthstone Championship Tour.
Yesterday, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan took to YouTube to announce some big changes coming to everyone's favorite guardian angel, Mercy. The changes that were revealed certainly weren't minor, shaking up the way Mercy plays dramatically. These changes were made in response to way many Mercy fans were playing - lying in wait for their team to wipe and then coming in with a big Resurrec to bring them all back to life.
We're now in the thick of Gamescom, and with big announcements from companies like Microsoft in the books, it's Blizzard's turn to make some reveals of its own. Blizzard's Gamescom press conference kicks off in just a few minutes, and even though the company has already made some announcements for games like Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm, it's safe to assume that it's probably prepared something big for its time on the Gamescom stage.
Well, that was fast: less than a year after announcing that it would drop its Battle.net branding, Blizzard has revealed that it will be sticking around after all. Even though Blizzard had already started the process of killing off Battle.net, it looks like it's a fair bit harder to part with such a popular brand than the company had anticipated. So, the Battle.net branding will stick around, though it'll still receive some tweaks.
Overwatch has been one of the most popular first person shooters since it launched almost a year and a half ago, but it's been missing one key FPS game mode its entire life: deathmatch. Players have been asking for deathmatch in some form since launch, but Blizzard has always responded with "no." The thinking behind the lack of deathmatch is that Blizzard would rather have Overwatch be about team-based objectives than simple kill count.
Overwatch's Summer Games event has returned, and with it comes a host of new skins and other cosmetic items to unlock. The three-week event will see players rushing to earn loot boxes to unlock these cosmetics, but just what kind of skins can you unlock? After Jeff Kaplan teased new legendary skins last week, Blizzard has now revealed all of the Summer Games skins that will be available during the event.
Developer Blizzard has finally announced the release date for the new Hearthstone expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and the good news for fans of the digital card-based game is that they won't have long to wait. Packed full of new features and cards, the expansion will be available for download next week, on Thursday, August 10th.
It's been a year since Blizzard rolled out Overwatch's first seasonal event, the Summer Games. Though the Summer Games were initially meant to coincide with the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Blizzard has decided to bring them back again this year. Jeff Kaplan made the announcement in a new developer update video, revealing that the Summer Games will be returning next week.
Blizzard has delivered some news that's encouraging for a lot of its players and scary for a special few: it will begin enacting stricter penalties for toxic behavior in Overwatch. Blizzard has already shown us that it has no problem swinging the banhammer when cheating is involved, but if you're toxic to your teammates (or even your enemies) it will begin swinging in your direction too. These new rules go into effect immediately, so if you've been silenced or suspended before, you might want to clean up your act quickly.
