Overwatch’s feisty dwarf engineer Torbjorn has long been considered a“troll pick.” In my experience, it’s common for teammates’ blood pressure to skyrocket whenever players pick him. We already knew Torbjorn was getting a much-needed overhaul, and today, Overwatch’s game director Jeff Kaplan finally announced what…
New Hearthstone expansions come out all the time, but it’s fairly rare for the base experience of the game to change outside of that. Earlier this week, Blizzard announced a few changes—including some new cards and tweaks to the ranked ladder system—that set the tone for how the game will evolve in the future. These…
As sports video games have shown us, sports are just games with off-the-court metagame layers attached. Also pageantry and juicy, juicy drama. Overwatch League follows this formula, making it ripe for a game in the most thrilling sports-adjacent genre of all: dating simulator. Wait, I mean management.
Introduced in last week’s update, Warfronts are a new feature in World of Warcraft’s Battle for Azeroth expansion. They’re large-scale battles reminiscent of the original Warcraft series’ real-time strategy battles. They’re only exciting for about an hour, but look at my new horse and armor. So good.
Back in May, Philadelphia Fusion’s Overwatch Contenders team, Fusion University, ran into some wardrobe difficulties when their team jersey—emblazoned with a giant, devil-may-care “FU”—got banned from the season one finals. Now, though, they’re back with a new jersey that tells “FU” haters to F off.
Further demonstrating Blizzard’s obvious Horde bias, within an hour of beginning questing in Battle for Azeroth’s new Horde-centric Vol’dun region I’ve ridden in a wagon pulled by the fluffiest alpaca ever, while an adorable little fox creature sang a song about them. I just can’t even.
Even in a league full of streamers and burgeoning personalities, teams are only as good as their players. Now that Overwatch League’s first season is over, some players have got to go.
“Well, it’s more of the same” is generally my answer when people ask me how I’m enjoying World of Warcraft’s seventh paid expansion, Battle for Azeroth. Then I spend several minutes explaining why that’s not a bad thing.
One of the most persistently annoying mechanics in Hearthstone is Taunt. When a minion has Taunt, you have to attack it—you can’t attack other minions or the enemy Hero. Usually, Taunt minions are not that difficult to deal with, as they typically have weaker stats than their Taunt-less counterparts.
Blizzard says that Overwatch’s new Busan map was not inspired by a fan map. In an email, a rep told Kotaku that the team had been working on the map long before an impressive fan mock-up appeared online in June, noting that production can take “nearly six months for some maps.” Check out yesterday’s story for more.
Last week’s Overwatch short starred fan favorite character D.Va and revealed a little bit about her personality. It also gave Overwatch fans a new character to swoon over: her squadmate, D.Mon.
Man, why did I waste two weeks questing through boring green hills for the Alliance when I could have been exploring dinosaur-infested swamps as a mighty Cowadin? Even in the middle of the Battle for Azeroth, the Horde have it good.
“D.Va’s Nano Challenge,” a new Overwatch promotion in which Blizzard teams up with popular streamers, has been by most counts a success. Last night, over 100,000 people simultaneously watched Overwatch streamer Seagull in hopes of earning in-game drops. Streamers who aren’t part of the promotion have decided they also…
Aspiring video game map maker Shua Llorente had no idea what he was getting himself into when, in June, he released a video of his mockup of a Busan map for Overwatch. The video pulled in over 150,000 views thanks to just how much it felt like an actual Overwatch take on the real Korean city. This month, Blizzard…
This past weekend, during one of the Overwatch League All-Star games, NYXL DPS Jong-ryeol “Saebyeolbe” Park—a master of split-second timing and precision—rolled right off a ledge into the infernal fires beneath King’s Row. When asked what happened, he quipped, “That’s my plan. It’s fan service.”
Citing a need to review security plans, Electronic Arts is canceling the three remaining qualifying events for its Madden NFL 19 tournament after two players were killed at one in Jacksonville, Florida on Sunday. Other esports organizations are also talking more about security for their events.
Hearthstone has shifted and bent its shape a handful of times over the years. When its first Naxxramas-themed “Adventure” expansion released in 2014, it took the shape of a single-player strategy game. Most recently, with Kobolds and Catacombs and The Witchwood, it took the form of a dungeon-crawling roguelike. And…
It only took two years, but Overwatch’s lean, mean esports queen D.Va—easily one of the game’s most popular characters—is finally getting some time in the spotlight. Alongside her CG short about being the world’s coolest workaholic who also happens to have PTSD, there’s also a new map set in the South Korean city of…
Has the new World of Warcraft expansion’s endless questing got you down? Why not take a break from killing things for a fast-paced, team-based treasure hunt? Battle for Azeroth’s Island Expeditions are just the thing to break up the basic grind.
