Tag Archives: blizzard

We're just a few hours away from Activision's first quarterly earnings call since the state of California sued the company on allegations of widespread misconduct. Many of these allegations have centred around Blizzard, so some changes were expected – the first of these changes was just announced, with J. Allen …

Activision Blizzard recently found themselves at the receiving end of a lawsuit due to the company’s workplace environment, the cultivation of which has been steeped with sexism, harassment, and even led to the suicide of a female employee. Following this, the company reacted to the lawsuit – the response to …

Earlier this week, the California Department of Fair Employment revealed that it would be suing Activision Blizzard over workplace misconduct, harassment and other issues. There has already been an ‘official' response from Activision Blizzard lawyers, which dismisses the allegations, however, an internal memo sent from Blizzard head, J. Allen Brack, …

As time goes on, it seems as though nearly every major video game publisher has suffered from toxic workplace cultures, filled with harassment and more. Following on from allegations levied against Ubisoft, Quantic Dream and more, it seems Activision Blizzard has suffered from equally bad, if not even worse issues …

Last night during the Xbox E3 showcase, Blizzard made a surprise appearance to reveal the release date for Diablo II: Resurrected. We already knew that the remake would be releasing this year, but it'll be coming a bit earlier than expected, there is also going to be an open beta …

Overwatch is still going strong and Blizzard is continuing to work on new features alongside Overwatch 2. One of the new features coming to Blizzard's original PvP shooter is Crossplay, allowing those across console and PC to team up and duke it out.  In the latest Overwatch developer update, newly …

Earlier this year, Blizzard began closed playtests for Diablo II: Resurrected and sure enough, some people took those files and modified the game to be playable offline. These offline patches were hosted on GitHub, but a DMCA wave has taken them all down. As reported by TorrentFreak, Activision Blizzard has …

Blizzard's big Overwatch 2 stream took place last night, during which developers revealed a lot more about the sequel. One of the biggest changes is a move away from the 6v6 matches in the original game to a new 5v5 format, which is much more common amongst competitive shooters.  With …

While Overwatch 2 didn't make a big appearance at BlizzCon this year, Blizzard does have updates to share with us. At this point, the sequel has a new director, as Jeff Kaplan left the company a short time ago. Now, Overwatch 2's new director, Aaron Keller, will be holding a …

Two days ago, Blizzard accidentally leaked a June 1st launch date for WoW Classic: Burning Crusade. At the time, we didn't know if this was the final release date or a placeholder, but that changes today, with Blizzard officially confirming the launch.  The Burning Crusade is coming to World of …

World of Warcraft Classic is going through some changes this year, with Blizzard launching new servers for The Burning Crusade expansion. There is currently an on-going beta for this but a release date has not been announced – although a Battle.net update may have leaked it.  A number of players …

After a near 20-year long career at the studio, Jeff Kaplan has announced that he is leaving Blizzard, continuing a trend of long-term creative leads departing from the company. Most recently, Kaplan was in charge of Overwatch and had begun leading development on Overwatch 2. Kaplan joined Blizzard in 2002 …

Back in February, during BlizzCon 2021, Blizzard shadow-dropped the Blizzard Arcade Collection, packaging together three classic Blizzard titles from the 90s. Blizzard is now expanding the collection, adding another two games. The Blizzard Arcade Collection began with three games, the first of which is The Lost Vikings, a puzzle platformer …

Blizzard is making good progress in Diablo 2: Resurrected, with the first technical play test set to begin this month. Blizzard has invited players to sign up for the first alpha test, which will focus on the single-player portion of the game.  The technical alpha test for Diablo 2: Resurrected …

March has been a big month for Crash Bandicoot, not only have we seen Crash Bandicoot 4 launch for next-gen consoles, Nintendo Switch and PC, but a mobile spin-off has also come out, which garnered over 8 million downloads on its first day.  Crash Bandicoot: On the Run launched on …

Blizzard has caused some drama this week after making changes to ‘game time' codes for World of Warcraft. While previously people could buy game time cards for 30, 60, 90 or 180 days, three of those options have been removed, leaving 60 day game time purchases as the only option.  …

Back in 2019, Activision Blizzard underwent a round of lay-offs, losing hundreds of staff members. This year, the company has another round of job cuts on the way, this time focusing on the esports division, which has suffered due to the lack of live events over the course of the …

Blizzard has finally begun upgrading Overwatch for next-gen consoles. In a patch this week, the developers added Xbox Series X/S enhancements to the game, bringing additional graphics modes – including a 120Hz mode. Overwatch on Xbox Series X/S will now have three different performance/graphics presets. The first is “resolution”, which …

Diablo 2: Resurrected is officially coming out this year, with development handled by the excellent team at Vicarious Visions, previously responsible for the Crash Bandicoot N'Sane trilogy remake. Following on from the game's announcement at BlizzCon, the PC version's system requirements have been revealed.  Diablo 2: Resurrected is a remaster …

BlizzCon Online officially kicked off late last night and as previously rumoured, we did indeed get announcement for Diablo 2: Resurrected, a remaster of the fan-favourite ARPG for PC and consoles.  Diablo 2: Resurrected will be releasing for PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and Nintendo Switch later …

The BlizzCon announcement leaks continue ahead of this weekend's virtual event. This time around, a collection of Blizzard Classics have leaked, with the studio bringing back three games from its humble beginning back in the 90s.  A leaked listing for the Blizzard Arcade Collection was spotted on the PEGI website …

We learned via an earnings call earlier this week that Blizzard won't be releasing Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2 this year. However, we will be seeing both games in action at BlizzCon, which takes place later this month.  The BlizzCon Online schedule went live last night, so we know what …

Back in late 2019, Blizzard announced both Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. Neither game has been given a release date yet, but many had hoped we'd see at least one of them in 2021. This week, Activision Blizzard confirmed that this won't be the case. During Activision Blizzard's quarterly earnings …

Activision is making a surprising change this week. Vicarious Visions, the studio behind the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, is going to be merging into Blizzard.  Vicarious Visions will soon be a new division within Blizzard. From there, all of Vicarious Vision's employees …

If for some reason you've never tried Overwatch, or never purchased it since the 2016 launch, then you have plenty of time to give Blizzard's shooter a go over the Christmas break. From now until the 4th of January, Overwatch is free to play.  Overwatch has had plenty of free …

As we know from the disastrous announcement at BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard has been working on a mobile Diablo game for a few years now. Not much news has come out about the project since its announcement, but that changes this week, as the game is now publicly playable in alpha …

We won't just be seeing Diablo 4 at BlizzCon Online in early 2021, Blizzard also has confirmed plans to show off progress on Overwatch 2. Overwatch lead, Jeff Kaplan, discussed the plans in an announcement post this week.  In the Overwatch Development Update video, Kaplan explains that we will be …

Each time a new World of Warcraft expansion launches, it seems to out-do the previous one in terms of sales. The case is no different for the recently launched Shadowlands expansion, which Blizzard claims is the “fastest-selling PC game of all time industry-wide”. Previously, the fastest selling PC-only game was …

In a surprise announcement, Blizzard today has announced that World of Warcraft now runs natively on Apple Silicon. The announcement comes just in time for the launch of Apple's latest MacBooks, all powered by the Apple M1 SoC.  This is very notable, as it means WoW can run on ARM64 …

Ahead of WoW's next big expansion launch, Blizzard is making an effort to crack down on certain in-game practices. The most notable thing here is a renewed stance against multi-boxing and automated gameplay methods.  This week, Blizzard issued a policy update for input broadcasting software. This allows a single keystroke …