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“IT’S JOHN CENA.” Overheard (about a life-sized Overwatch statue) at BlizzCon. Winston is, of course, a kindly yet terrifying genetically engineered gorilla—not John Cena, who is a different kindly yet terrifying genetically engineered gorilla. I wonder who would win a fight. Here’s the statue up-close: He even has actual hair. Clearly someone cares a lot…

The Bob Ross Twitch Phenomenon Supposedly Ends Tonight

The best thing to happen on Twitch all year comes to a close later tonight. Or at least, it’s supposed to. For the last week, a Bob Ross marathon of every episode of The Joy of Painting has been broadcasting on Twitch, and it’s been a delight. Every time I’ve tuned in, I become mesmerized…

How Snoopy Killed Peanuts

By the end of its run in 2000, Peanuts was an institution. It had become an omnipresent part of American culture, and that’s not a compliment. (Note: this piece originally ran on August 20, 2015.) The general response to reading the average Peanuts strip in the 80s and 90s was a ‘meh’ half-smile — a…

Fabled ‘Nintendo PlayStation’ Console Only Cost $75 at Auction, Seems to Work

Earlier this year, reports surfacedof a surviving Nintendo PlayStation prototype from the short-lived partnershipbetween the two video game giants. Many were skeptical if the device was real. But now there’s video of the prototype powering on and playing games. Video footage of the Nintendo PlayStation prototype comes via Engadget, who also have an in-depth interview…

World of Warcraft’s next big expansion, Legion, is coming out this coming summer, Blizzard confirmed today at Blizzcon. Also Illidan Stormrage is coming back! Are you PREPARED? I’m not. Watch the fantastic new trailer above.

Overwatch Base Price Will Be $40, $60 On Consoles

Turns out Overwatch won’t be free-to-play, as many (myself included!) had predicted. Instead it’ll cost you $40 to buy the base version of Blizzard’s new hero shooter on PC, Blizzard just announced. To buy the premium “Origins” edition, which comes with a bunch of skins and other perks and is available for PC, PS4, and…

New Hearthstone Adventure Comes Out Next Week

Blizzard’s mega-popular competitive game is getting a bunch of new card and mechanics with the League of Explorers adventure mode, which will launch next week. Announced today at Blizzcon, League of Explorers will be a four-wing pack full of bosses and new legendary cards. It’ll also add new game boards, some class challenges, and a…

Crazy New Heroes of the Storm Character Is Controlled By Two People At Once

Heroes of the Storm’s next hero is going to be a giant ogre named Cho’gall, game director Dustin Browder said today at Blizzcon. In a unique twist, he’ll be played by two separate people at the same time. Holy crap. Blizzard really meant it when they said they’re breaking all the MOBA rules! Browder also…

Blizzard Announces Goofy New ‘Arena’ Mode For Heroes Of The Storm

Heroes of the Storm’s Dustin Browder took the stage at Blizzcon this afternoon to announce a whacky-sounding new feature for their excellent new MOBA. It’s called “The Arena,” and lets you do crazy shit like play a game with everyone as the same hero. Nice! Establishing it as a feature suggests it’s going to make…

Here’s The Warcraft Movie Trailer

Showcased at Blizzcon today, here’s the trailer for the upcoming Warcraft movie, which will debut in June. There are orc babies. Also some war. Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon), this Warcraft movie will be set early in the franchise’s history, and will star iconic old characters like Lothar, Durotan, and Medivh. It’ll be out on…

Starcraft 2: Nova Covert Ops, three upcoming missions for Starcraft 2, will drop on spring 2016, Blizzard announced today. Here’s the trailer!

Watch The Blizzcon Keynote Right Here

Is Overwatch free-to-play? When’s World of Warcraft: Legion coming out? Where’s the Warcraft movie trailer? We’ll hopefully get some answers to those questions and more this afternoon at Blizzcon. Watch the keynote, which starts at 2pm ET, right here:

A PS4 Game’s Quest To Create A Realistic Woman

Hellblade, Ninja Theory’s upcoming action game that explores mental illness, wants a protagonist that looks as believable as possible. This means two things, as far as the developers are concerned: nailing the protagonist’s expressions so they look human, and giving the character a body with realistic proportions. Two weeks ago, Ninja Theory detailed all the…

Activision Blizzard Launches Film And TV Studio

You might think that, after this week’s surprise $5.9 billion acquisition, Activision might be out of big announcements to make. But it turns out they’ve got at least one more. The mega-publisher announced today that they’re launching a studio for film and TV projects in their huge stable of francises, which includes Call of Duty,…

Riot still isn’t working on adding a sandbox mode to League of Legends, developer Jeffrey “RiotLyte” Lin confirmedlast night on Twitter. This comes three months after a tremendous outpouring of anger and disappointment from fans who really wanted a sandbox mode. Riot’s working on a ton of other cool stuff, though.

The Life and Creativity of A Great Bethesda Artist

I couldn’t stop smiling one day in late 2005 as I was led through the darkened basement of Bethesda Softworks toward the little corner unit that was to be my cube. My geek barometer was pinging off the charts. I could scarcely believe that I was there. The place looked like a laser-tag facility; the…

Street Fighter Character’s Motivational Speeches Are Hype As Hell 

R. Mika really knows how to get people pumped, let me tell you. Earlier this year, we wrote about R. Mika’s special V-Skill ability, which allows her to become so powerful, she can almost one-hit-kill her enemies—provided, of course, that she can finish the entirety of her speech beforehand. It looked really rad! That’s not…

Why Bad Pro Wrestling Injuries Can Often Be Good News

Pro wrestling injuries suck for the wrestlers who get hurt. For everyone else, they are, weirdly, a good thing. That’s true even this week as one of the WWE’s best performers, its top champion Seth Rollins, suffered multiple knee injuries during a non-televised match in Ireland and will be shelved for the next six to…

Black Ops III: Last-Gen vs Current-Gen

You’d think from hanging around the internet that by 2015 most people would be playing Black Ops III on a PC, Xbox One or PS4. But remember, there are still a lotta folks out there with last-gen hardware. Now is the time to be reminded of their predicament. When the latest consoles were still brand…

The Gamer Who Didn’t Leave His House For Over a Year

“I went to GameStop a couple of months ago and even that wasn’t a far trip at all,” says Troy. He pauses for a few seconds, as if lost in thought. “I wanted some Wii U games,” he laughs. “That was interesting.” This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK Troy, a video game streamer from…