Blizzard Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Overwatch 2 has started with a bunch of hero changes, but those that play the healer Mercy are feeling particularly hard done by.After Blizzard announced some hero changes alongside the arrival of the new beta, players have voiced their discontent at the adjustments made to flying healer Mercy.Her main ability, Guardian Angel, previously allowed Mercy to fly an extended distance, over 30 metres, to a nearby hero for support purposes, and players could be launched upwards for a big vertical boost if they cancelled this using the crouch feature. This can no longer be used by players, but will automatically launch you upwards if you reach the end of Guardian Angel.Angelic Descent, another of her abilities, has also been altered so that holding down a move input will slow down her ascent speed, meaning that “This means you can dampen vertical knockbacks (such as Junkrat’s Concussive Mine) but also reduce the amount of height that the GA vert boost gives you,” explained the developer.With these alterations, fans have taken to social media to discuss the changes with the predominant activity taking place on the Mercy Mains subreddit.

Microsoft has confirmed that Diablo 4 will be the first Activision Blizzard title to come to Xbox Game Pass.Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was finally approved in October 2023 after being announced in January 2022 via a deal thought to be worth £50billion.Now the first of Microsoft’s new franchises is coming to its subscription-based Game Pass service. Head of Xbox Sarah Bond confirmed the news during an official Xbox podcast last night (February 15).Diablo 4 will be available to play via Game Pass from March 28 and is said to be the first of multiple Activision and Blizzard-developed titles coming to the service.Elsewhere in the podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer announced that Game Pass now had 34million “fully paid” subscribers compared to 25million in 2022.

Overwatch 2 can’t seem to catch a break – after a troubled launch, players have discovered a small but frustrating feature for fans on console playing with friends on PC – as the game disables aim assist in PC crossplay matches, putting console players at a disadvantage.As spotted by Kotaku, console players are taking to Reddit after discovering that they can’t use aim assist when playing against their PC pals – and they’re not happy about it. In a post dated October 11, user KellySweetHeart pointed out that the disabled aim assist was making it difficult for their friends to play together, noting that they were suffering a “significant dip in their aim consistency.”“For some, it’s just an obstacle, but others just find less enjoyment out of the game being disadvantaged this way,” said KellySweetHeart.

Blizzard has announced what season 2 of Hearthstone Battlegrounds will include when it launches at the end of the month – and some players aren’t happy.READ MORE: What the hell has happened at Activision and why should you care?Alongside quest mechanics and two new heroes, the planned update to Hearthstone’s auto-battler mode will bring with it a new paid season pass that will give buyers access to a premium tier of its reward track.The first reward of the track is two additional hero slots, which will not be obtainable any other way. This means players who don’t pay will be stuck choosing from two random heroes, while those on the premium tier will have the choice of four.

Diablo Immortal is causing randomly reduced XP rewards. The bug reduces XP earned from slaying enemies at random, making the grind for players more frustrating. The more dedicated fans have tried to calculate what their exact XP losses are.One Reddit user, staplepies, posted: “We don’t fully understand why or when it will happen.

World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight expansion will be released later this year, with pre-orders now live.The expansion was first confirmed back in April and today (June 22) Activision Blizzard has announced three digital versions of Dragonflight (Base, Heroic, and Epic, costing £40, £55, and £75 respectively) alongside a £130 physical release.Each digital release comes with its own perks, while the physical edition includes a hardcover art book and selection of pins. It’s also confirmed that the expansion will launch “on or before December 31, 2022”."World of Warcraft: Dragonflight will be available on or before December 31, 2022." pic.twitter.com/VY9keH5BZz— GG WoW (@GGWoW) June 21, 2022Dragonflight will add dragonriding to the MMO, which is an “all-new skill-based method of aerial movement that allows players to take to the skies on the back of their personal Dragon Isles Drake.

Blizzard that Diablo Immortal will not be released in the Netherlands or Belgium – two countries with strict rules about loot boxes.According to Tweakers, the communication manager of Activision Blizzard Benelux has confirmed that Diablo Immortal will be unavailable due to “the current operating conditions in these countries.”The game will not be available in these countries through the app stores, nor will it be available for PC through Battle.net.Activision Blizzard Benelux declined to expand on which operating conditions it was referring to specifically but both Netherlands and Belgium have made it difficult for developers to include loot boxes in games.Belgium banned loot boxes completely in 2018 following uproar around their presence in Star Wars Battlefront 2, while in 2020 a Netherlands court ruled that the FIFA Ultimate Team loot boxes were a form of gambling and EA was fined £8.8million, though that decision was overturned earlier this year.A support ticket from what looks like Blizzard’s team of gamemasters seems to confirm the news as well.“Unfortunately players in the Netherlands and Belgium will not be able to install Diablo Immortal due to the countries’ gambling restrictions. The lootboxes in the game are against the law in your country,” reads the reply.

Blizzard over the sale of Hearthstone card packs to minors.According to Polygon, lawyers filed a complaint in the Superior Court Of Orange County on behalf of Nathan Harris’ daughter and other minors who have bought Hearthstone’s randomised card packs earlier this week. Harris has claimed Hearthstone tricks players into non-refundable purchases without knowing the odds of rare cards.Harris’ suit alleges that his daughter used his credit and debit cards to spend over £240 ($300) on card packs between 2019 and 2021 and “almost never received any valuable cards”The suit argues that Blizzard’s lack of refund policy and parental controls is in breach of “disaffirmation law”, a ruling through the California Family Code that allows a contract to be broken if it’s undertaken by a minor.However, Blizzard has since filed its own complaint, arguing that the company “does not know, and would have no way of accurately knowing, which Hearthstone in-game transactions were initiated by minors using parental credit or debit cards, as (Harris’ daughter) claims to have done.

Blizzard has officially revealed details about the long-awaited Dragonflight expansion for World Of Warcraft.Perhaps the biggest addition to World Of Warcraft is the rideable dragon mounts that Dragonflight brings to the game. Dragonriding is “an all-new skill-based method of aerial movement that allows players to take to the skies on the back of their personal Dragon Isles Drake.

Hearthstone fans have launched into criticism of Blizzard, after the company added a Diamond Drek’Thar card that costs £20.99 to purchase.In the latest patch for Hearthstone (via PC Gamer), Blizzard has added a diamond version of the game’s Drek’Thar card. The rarest tier of card in the game, diamond-tier cards are animated but otherwise work exactly like lower-tier cards.“The Horde may have lost the battle for Alterac Valley, but the honourable Horde is proud and strong! Show that your Horde pride can overcome any enemy with this Diamond Drek’Thar Legendary card, featuring a special Diamond frame and animation,” reads the card’s entry on the Battle.Net store.However, the price of Diamond Drek’Thar has led to heated criticism from the Hearthstone community, and the card’s price tag – £20.99 or 3000 gold has been condemned by fans across social media.In a Reddit thread expressing derision at Diamond Drek’Thar’s price, one player called the decision “ridiculous and stupid”, while another said it was “a new low” for Blizzard.“Just when you thought Blizzard[‘s] monetization couldn’t get any greedier,” added another unhappy player.Over on Twitter, the sentiment remains the same.Diamond Drek'thar should summon 10-drops because it sure as hell costs more than every single minion in my deck.

Blizzard studio head, Mike Ybarra, has told fans to “stay tuned” for more news on Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo.The news came via Twitter. When a Twitter user suggested that Blizzard should dedicate more of its time on existing products, Ybarra revealed more.In a tweet, Ybarra explained that “Blizzard is a big studio [with] talented and growing teams”. He continued by adding that “you’ll be hearing more on that from Warcraft and Overwatch“.

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.

World Of Warcraft community has rallied behind a 70-year-old man who was banned for “playing the game a way that Blizzard assumes bots do,” and his six month ban has been overturned.On Friday (January 21), the children of a 70-year-old World Of Warcraft fan took to the MMO’s subreddit to ask for help in getting their father’s account unbanned. According to the post (via PCGamesN), he received a six month ban “for basically playing the game a way that Blizzard assumes bots do.”“He’s been playing WoW since the original launch of [Burning Crusade]. He’s a 70-year-old guy who loves to quest around and lvl new characters,” reads the post.

Activision Blizzard penned an open letter to the company’s employees that warned them of the “consequences” of joining a union.Brian Bulatao, the chief administrative officer of the embattled publisher and former Under Secretary of State for Management in the Trump administration, wrote to employees last Friday (December 10) over plans to unionise.

stuck in a pub for three nights last week during a blizzard in the UK.Former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher has since responded to news of the epic lock-in, in what fans have affectionately dubbed “Snowasis.” “I’m actually jealous,” he said of the meteorological predicament.Gallagher’s comments came after one fan on Twitter prompted the 49-year-old musician for his take on Wednesday. Added Gallagher, “I’m always trying to get a lock inn [sic].”Noasis was booked for a show on Nov.

Blizzard Entertainment might be working on an unannounced Overwatch mobile game, as hinted at by a recent job listing at the company.The possibility arises from a recent posting for “Product Manager, Mobile Projects” (as spotted by Dexerto), which lists Overwatch alongside a host of other Blizzard titles that prospective candidates for the role would be working on.The position, which will be working from Blizzard’s Irvine, California headquarters, says the new hire “will be working on multiple

Blizzard has announced Eternity’s End, the final major content update for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.According to Senior Games Designer, Steve Danuser, “The Shadowlands Story pulls together threads that started in Warcraft 3 and wove their way through many of our expansions.”“We approached it like a drama in three acts,” he continued.

Blizzard is continuing to clean up World of Warcraft, removing several risqué jokes and flirtatious lines of dialogue from the game.The changes appear to be live now on the Public Test Realm, or PTR, (as spotted by WoWHead) and come as part of the 9.1.5 patch.

Diablo 2: Resurrected means that some players cannot boot the game, but a fix is coming.The issue relates to how Blizzard built the remaster. Despite the game’s engine being very similar to the original, it has caused some problems running on older hardware.

Overwatch 2 appears to be cutting down on references to ex-director of Blizzard, Jeff Kaplan, in the new overhaul of the New York map.Following Kaplan’s departure from Blizzard in April, development of Overwatch 2 has continued with Aaron Keller in the lead role.

Blizzard’s upcoming Diablo II: Resurrected now has an official release time for its September 23 launch date.Fans of Diablo 2 who have been waiting for Resurrected to launch will be able to download the game from 4 PM BST (8 AM PT) on September 23 from Blizzard’s BattleNet service.The open beta for Diablo II: Resurrected ran last month and allowed players to try out Act I and Act II of the main campaign, with five of the seven classes available to play as well.For players that had previously

World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment will be removing outdated and sexually tinged jokes from the game as part of an upcoming update.At least two jokes will be removed, both being the names of achievements for completing actions in-game. One currently called “My Sack is Gigantique” will be renamed to “My Storage is Gigantique”, while another, “Bros.

Diablo Immortal has had its release date pushed back to 2022, following player feedback from a recent closed alpha test of the game.In a blog post, developer Blizzard Entertainment says “the game is now planned for release in the first half of 2022, which will allow us to add substantial improvements to the whole game”.Blizzard added that it “has been tuning core and endgame features”, with an emphasis on iterating and improving PvP content “to make it more accessible”, as well as fine-tuning

Activision Blizzard faces a lawsuit after accusations from employees that they’ve faced “constant sexual harassment, including groping, comments, and advances” in the workplace, a former senior employee has written an open letter calling for industry-wide unionization.Shared via IGN, Jeff Strain’s ‘It’s Time’ letter starts with Strain saying how “the Activision Blizzard disclosures this week have left me disgusted and repulsed — but not at all surprised.”Having joined Blizzard Entertainment in

Overwatch League has announced its return to live events, starting in September.The 2021 Overwatch League postseason will take place from September 4-25 through online regional play-in matches, leading into double-elimination playoffs taking place from September 16-19 and the grand finals on September 25.Both the play-offs and grand final will mark a return to offline competition with a live audience.

World Of Warcraft.The raid was released just over a week ago, and since then five prominent clans have been fighting for the title of world’s first mythic clear of the Sanctum Of Domination raid. World’s first competitions are popular competitive events in numerous MMO titles, including World Of Warcraft, Destiny 2 and Final Fantasy XIV.Echo Clan claimed the victory yesterday (Jul 20), recording the world’s first kill of raid boss Sylvanas on the hardest difficulty.