News | Collector's Edition of World of Warcraft: The War Within revealed

Blizzard this week unveiled the 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition of upcoming World of Warcraft expansion The War Within.

The Collector’s Edition can now be pre-ordered and costs 200 euros. In return, you will not only receive a code for the game, but also an art book, a statue of the Gryphon Rider, a pin featuring Anduin, Thrall and Alleria and additional game content.

Since this week, it has been possible for interested parties to register through the beta of The War Within. People who register have a chance to receive an invitation, and Blizzard indicates that invitations will be sent out regularly during the beta test.

Following The War Within is Midnight, set in the ancient world of Azeroth, Quel’thalas, where the Void attempts to destroy the Sunwell to shroud the world in darkness. The twelfth expansion is called The Last Titan, which is set in Northrend, known from Wrath of the Lich King. Players will uncover an intricate plot surrounding the returned Titans.


News | New Overwatch 2 heroes will immediately be available for free from the tenth season

New playable heroes in Overwatch 2 will be completely free from the upcoming tenth season.

Blizzard has announced this. Previously, new heroes could only be unlocked immediately with a paid battle pass, or by completing different tiers of the free battle pass. But from season 10 onwards, all players can immediately start working with new heroes. This also applies retroactively to all previously released Overwatch 2 heroes.

In the tenth season, which starts on April 16, players will also be able to earn Coins through the free and premium battle pass. The amount of Coins that can be unlocked for free each season will increase from 540 to 600. Weekly Challenges will now award Battle Pass XP instead of Coins.

Blizzard is also adding a new way to unlock Mythic skins in the tenth season. These could previously only be unlocked through seasonal battle passes, but older Mythic skins will also be available for purchase through a new Mythic Shop. When this in-game store launches during season ten, the Mythic skins from seasons one through seven will be available.


News | World of Warcraft is getting battle royale mode named Plunderstorm starting today

As of today, the mmorpg World of Warcraft includes a limited-time battle royale mode called Plunderstorm.

Plunderstorm will be added to the popular online RPG with content update 10.2.6 and will last a few weeks. The mode has a pirate theme, with players searching the Arathi Highlands for skills, upgrades and loot to plunder. Each game lasts ten to fifteen minutes and starts with sixty players. The winner is the last one standing.

Players must create a separate character for Plunderstorm, which is unique to that mode. You can play the mode alone, or pair up with another WoW player. You find spells and skills in the world, which are then automatically added to your action bar. In chests you can find even stronger variants of all skills.

Players will be rewarded for their efforts with cosmetic items, pets, titles and mounts. A special reward route is available, including a Plunderlord parrot to string up and Bubbles the pet crab.

No additional expansion is required for Plunderstorm. Players of World of Warcraft Classic can also play the battle royale mode. More information can be found in Blizzard’s blog post. Below you can see the announcement trailer for Plunderstorm.


News | Activision Blizzard Acquisition Preliminarily Approved by CMA

The Competition and Markets Authority has provisionally approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The British agency says that Microsoft’s new proposal has largely resolved its concerns, although there are still some minor points that need to be negotiated. The earlier announcement that Ubisoft, not Microsoft, will receive the right to release Activision Blizzard games on cloud services was a decisive factor for this preliminary approval.

The Competition and Markets Authority disapproved of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard earlier this year – as did the US Federal Trade Commission. However, last July the FTC lost the lawsuit against Microsoft to block the takeover, after which the CMA indicated that it wanted to sit down with Microsoft again. Shortly afterwards, a new deadline of October 18 for CMA’s ruling was set, but a preliminary ruling has now already been issued. The final decision must therefore be made no later than October 18.

Microsoft is willing to pay approximately $68.7 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard. In addition to Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard also owns franchises such as World of Warcraft, Diablo and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. King is also part of the company, a developer of mobile hits such as Candy Crush.


News | Diablo 4 season two revealed

Blizzard showed a trailer for the upcoming second season of Diablo 4 during the Gamescom Opening Night Live show.

The second season is called Season of Blood and will be released on October 17. Players fight alongside the computer-controlled Eris, a skilled vampire hunter voiced by Eternals actress Gemma Chan. Players can expect five endgame bosses, as well as unlock vampire powers as they complete new missions.

Blizzard’s Rod Fergusson announced on stage at the Gamescom show that there are now twelve million Diablo 4 players. In addition, he promises that new content will be added to the game for years to come.

Diablo 4 is available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One and PC.


Review | Diablo IV

The first time I heard the sound, I knew I was in trouble. You know it, that swishing sound in Diablo when you open a chest and the loot flies through the air. A sound full of possibilities, endless possibilities. What could i get next, how could I improve, how could I become better?

I hadn’t touched Diablo in a few years, but when I heard that sound in Diablo 4, I knew it: the game immediately got me all over again. Diablo can motivate you like no other to keep playing in order to assemble ever better equipment, unlock ever better skills and tackle and hopefully defeat increasingly difficult bosses. This fourth part further hones that into an irresistible gameplay loop.

It’s a delicious feast of an endless stream of enemies and interesting skills to unleash on them. Diablo may sometimes feel like mindless clicking, but especially on higher difficulties you really need tactics. Especially if you play with several people at the same time, you can conjure up the entire screen with whirlwinds, fireballs, skeletons or landslides.

You start your journey by choosing one of the five available classes. Whether you go for the Barbarian, Druid, Rogue, Necromancer or Sorcerer, the skill tree allows you to completely adapt your character to your own playing style. The choice between these skills is better than ever because it offers a lot of flexibility without giving you too much freedom.

I myself chose the Necromancer, which immediately appeals to me. With a simple click you conjure up an army of skeletons at your feet that do what you want, attack whoever you want. From a distance I hurl bonespikes at the enemy and let my undead hordes finish the job. At later levels you can summon even bigger undead creatures including a golem.

Casting through the hordes of monsters with my karate was an immense pleasure. What makes it even more fun is that for each of the above skills I also had three or four other choices. For example, maybe you don’t want hordes of undead minions around you, but rather solve it alone. Or maybe you prefer to work with blood magic, kill your enemies and heal yourself in one blow. Each class is very well put together in that way, with at least four or five workable builds to go for.

Each choice also feels much more important. In Diablo 3 you could switch skills at any time, but in part 4 that comes with a price tag. In the beginning you don’t have to pay that much gold to ‘respec’ a skill and make a different choice, but later on it will cost a considerable amount of money. So you don’t have to be afraid of a wrong choice during the first levels, but you do have to make a clear decision in the end.

That may seem restrictive compared to the previous part, but it makes you feel much more connected to your character and his or her skills. You can also no longer turn off all your AoE skills just before a final boss, so you really have to make a balanced build. It’s a perfect balance between the freedom to make a wrong choice and the coercive hand to come up with a good tactic yourself.

The large amount of loot has also been improved in a way that was not obvious. Diablo 3 was packed with sets of awesome weapons and armor that you could combine for extra power. This seemed really cool, but also had a major drawback: some sets were clearly the very best, so most players only wanted those sets. That doesn’t offer much flexibility.

Diablo 4 doesn’t choose to make equipment even cooler and stronger, but instead scales back and makes it more flexible. You can improve almost anything you find at a blacksmith shop, change the properties of each piece of equipment, or even turn rare items into legendary pieces of equipment with special abilities of your choice. So the choice is no longer just: is this new weapon better or worse than what I’m using now? But also: can I make this new weapon even better, so that it is still useful? Only at the higher difficulty levels do you now encounter unique objects that offer some extra power, and even those often have limitations, so that the ‘ultimate’ build cannot be simply sketched out.

A change that immediately catches the eye is the dark style of this latest part. Some fans were shocked by the colorful environments in Diablo 3, although I was not one of them. I was charmed by the style, something different from the always so dark worlds of Diablo.

The game is beautiful and the new style often comes into its own. Environments are full of details, which can often be broken. The lighting in particular comes into its own, with lanterns swaying in the wind and bathing the dark streets in a wavering light.

However, the gothic style covers the entire game with a heavy blanket of dullness, which also makes everything feel a bit the same. In any case, the environments are not very creative and it mainly seems to be a list of hangouts for goths: a dark lawn, dark cave, dark desert, dark snow field, a castle that is on fire, but is still dark. I was never stimulated by anything new. They are mainly places that we have also seen in previous Diablos.

The story isn’t very impressive either. A bunch of fools summon Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto, who has a sinister plan to become more powerful than ever. You mainly follow her for the rest of the game, so that you never really meet her and are always too late to intervene. You especially get into trouble with the aftermath of her plans and the monsters she has summoned.

Normally I’d say if you’re playing Diablo for the story, you’re doing it wrong. But part four puts extra emphasis on it, with many more cutscenes and dialogues. That’s quite nicely done, with some emotional moments, but the game’s engine can’t really handle it. The camera is made to hover over the action, not to zoom in on someone’s face.

As a result, some videos are quite ugly. In any case, they are in stark contrast to the game’s CGI intro, which is so beautiful that it could have been shown in the cinema. There are a lot of cutscenes that have clearly been given more attention, but in normal conversation characters are sometimes wooden and environments suddenly much uglier up close.

The other big change: Diablo 4 is an online game. That works out differently, and depends a bit on your gaming taste. In any case, we do not yet know how well the servers will hold up, but that will in any case be fine in the longer term. A bigger downside is that the game cannot be paused. That’s quite annoying if you’re just busy in a dungeon and the doorbell rings, or your cat pukes on the carpet. Since you can be attacked at any time, only in villages do you feel safe enough to go to the toilet.

On the positive side, the open world feels much more social as a result. Everywhere you see other players walking around in villages, or you meet them at one of the random events on the map. It feels good to go into battle together, overcome a tough challenge and then choose your own path again. Although of course you can always become friends or join each other’s clan.

Diablo 4 is already a pleasure on your own, but especially with multiple players in a group of up to four, the game really comes into its own. The interplay between the different classes and the effects of all those different skills racing across the screen: it’s a pleasure to watch and to control.

Diablo 4 is a gigantic game, with more elements than we can describe in one review. The best part is how the game seems to find a solution for all the little problems that could ruin your gaming experience.

In addition to the aforementioned smart things about loot and respecting builds, for example, it does its best to make the open world manageable. Everywhere you will find dungeons, side missions and cellars full of monsters, but of course you don’t have to go through everything. However, optional dungeons grant Legendary abilities that you can craft on your equipment. Fortunately, you can see on the map which skill you find in which dungeon, so that you don’t waste hours in dungeons only to get skills that you can’t use with your class.

At the same time, the game knows how to motivate you to spend more time in the open game world. Each area discovered, mission or dungeon completed fills a reward meter, unlocking crucial items for that region of the world map. Consider, for example, extra skill points or more XP, but also an extra health bottle that you always carry with you. This way you are constantly encouraged to stray from the path and visit the optional villages, characters and dungeons.

The game is full of these kinds of elements. Just when you get the feeling that the open world is getting very big and difficult to navigate, you get a horse at your disposal to race through it a bit faster. You can put a pin on your map and the fastest route to get there will automatically be shown on your minimap. Anyway, you can teleport to any village you’ve been to at any time, sell your inventory and then go back to where you left off. These are all elements that reduce the friction of this sometimes overwhelming game and make it endlessly playable.

Of course a game like Diablo 4 is difficult to review. I have now put in a decent amount of hours and have only just got a taste of the game, in which you always complete new dungeons and other challenges at higher levels of difficulty. I have seen a solid basis there to want to continue playing the game for dozens of hours, but my playing time is certainly too little to know whether this will remain fun and challenging for hundreds of hours, let alone whether all classes will reach level 100 in their ultimate form be well balanced. Also, the first season doesn’t start until July, so I can’t tell you if the upcoming Battle Pass with cosmetic items will ruin the gameplay.

What I do know is that Diablo 4 lays an unprecedentedly good foundation that fans can use again in the coming years. The game seems even better balanced, loot has been cleverly adjusted and your heroes and gear feel more personal as you have to think more about your build.

Score:

9,0

+ Weighty choices in character development
+ Open game world that rewards curiosity
+ Loot system feels well balanced

– Story and environments are a bit disappointing
– Game cannot be paused


News | Blizzard releases Diablo 4 live action trailer

A new live action trailer for Diablo 4 has been released.

The trailer features a wide variety of environments and action-packed scenes. Several people ask for the help of the player.

Diablo 4 will be released on June 6 for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One. The game features cross-play and cross-progression. People who buy a special edition of the game can already get started with the game from June 2.


News | Blizzard reveals system requirements for Diablo 4

Blizzard has revealed the system requirements for the final version of Diablo 4 on PC.

Blizzard says that Diablo 4 will run on systems that are less powerful than the recommended specifications, but that this can “significantly reduce the gaming experience”.

Minimum system requirements, game running in 1080p native / 720p render, low graphics settings, 30 fps:

OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD FX-8350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon R9 280
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 90 GB of free hard disk space
Internet: broadband

Medium system requirements , game runs in 1080p, medium graphics settings, 60 fps:

OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K or AMD Ryzen 1300X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 470
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 90 GB of free hard disk space
Internet: broadband

High system requirements, game runs in 1080p, high graphics settings, 60 fps:

OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 2700X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 90 GB of free hard disk space
Internet: broadband

Ultra system requirements, game runs in 4k, ultra graphics settings, 60 fps:

OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
Memory: 32 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series to fully support DLSS3 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 90 GB of free hard disk space
Internet: broadband

The above specs also apply to Server Slam, the upcoming third beta running May 12-14. Everyone can then try the game. Blizzard prefers to see as many players as possible to test whether the servers can handle it. The beta starts on May 12 at 9:00 PM Dutch time and ends on May 14 at 9:00 PM.


News | Diablo 4 trailer showcases the druid class

A new short trailer for Diablo 4 zooms in on the druid class.

The video shows the druid wielding various magical powers, including whirlwinds and wolves. In addition, he can turn into a ferocious beast himself.

Last week, Blizzard announced that it will host a third beta weekend, dubbed the “Server Slam,” from May 12-14. Anyone on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One can then try the game. Blizzard prefers to see as many players as possible to test whether the servers can handle it. The beta starts on May 12 at 9:00 PM Dutch time and ends on May 14 at 9:00 PM.

Diablo 4 will be released on June 6 on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One, although pre-orders will get access four days early.


News | Diablo 4 trailer highlights the Sorcerer class

A new Diablo 4 video revolves around the game's Sorcerer class.

Controlling the natural elements, the Sorcerer uses powerful fire, lightning, and ice attacks in battle. They are therefore the focus of the trailer below.

Blizzard will be broadcasting a new Developer Update live stream this Thursday at 8:00 PM Dutch time. It takes a closer look at the endgame content and changes that will be made after the beta. The live stream can also be viewed via YouTube.

Diablo 4 will be released on June 6 on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One, although pre-orders will get access four days early.