Blizzard News Articles
Saturday8th Oct 2022
News Overwatch 2 Player Calculates '5 Year' F2P Grind To Unlock New Hero's Cosmetics
The price of free-to-play
In case you missed it, Overwatch has swapped to a free-to-play model with the release of the second title earlier this week, and that means there are some new microtransactions, like the premium battle pass. In other words, if you want to unlock certain cosmetics or get more out of the game, you might need to fork out real...
Wednesday5th Oct 2022
News Overwatch 2 Servers Hit By "Mass DDoS Attack" On Launch Day
The free-to-play sequel is now live on Switch
It's a new era for Blizzard's Overwatch series - with the company rolling out Overwatch 2 across multiple platforms including the Nintendo Switch today. It's free-to-play, features cross-platform play and progression and can be downloaded now from the Switch eShop. Unfortunately, the launch hasn't gone...
Wednesday28th Sep 2022
News Overwatch 2 Gets New Defence Matrix To Combat "Cheaters And Disruptive Players"
Out with the old and in with the new
Overwatch 2 will arrive as a free-to-play game on the Nintendo Switch and other platforms very soon — on October 4th. Replacing the original Overwatch servers in the process, the sequel is set to introduce a huge number of new players to the online game increasing the prospect of disruptive behaviour and...
Friday16th Sep 2022
News The "Last Day" To Play The Original Overwatch Will Be Early Next Month
Assault maps are also being dropped
Overwatch 2 will arrive on the Nintendo Switch and multiple other platforms early next month as a free-to-play title. As part of this, Blizzard has announced it will be shutting down the original game's servers. This will take place just days before the second game's launch on 4th October. Here's how Blizzard's...
Friday8th Jul 2022
News Overwatch 2 Dev Blizzard "Committed" To Reviving BlizzCon In 2023
The live event will return
It's the time of year when all sorts of video game conferences are broadcast, or at least get announced. Blizzard - the developer behind series like Diablo, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft hasn't held its own in-person event in a while, but it seems this will be changing next year. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times...
Friday17th Jun 2022
News Overwatch 2 Is Getting Rid Of Loot Boxes In Favour Of A Battle Pass
Roadmap and new character announced
Overwatch 2 finally secured a release date earlier this week and official confirmation that the sequel to Blizzard's hugely popular online shooter will be coming to Switch. Now Blizzard has revealed the game's upcoming roadmap, along with some interesting changes, during a reveal event broadcast yesterday. On top...
Monday13th Jun 2022
News Blizzard's Overwatch 2 Launches On Nintendo Switch This October
PvP will be free-to-play
During the recent Xbox Bethesda showcase, Blizzard shared a few announcements. One of them was the news that Overwatch 2 would be launching in early access on PC and consoles on October 4th. According to the PR, this includes Nintendo Switch. It was also confirmed the player-versus-player multiplayer component will be...
Thursday19th May 2022
Random It Looks Like Activision Blizzard's 'Diversity Tool' Analysed Super Mario And Co. Years Ago
Who remembers GDC 2017?
Over the past week, word has gotten out over Activision Blizzard's 'Diversity Space Tool', a measurement device apparently created to assist developers in creating a more diverse cast of characters for their games. As reported by Eurogamer, various internal staff at the company are not happy about the tool, stating that such...
Friday25th Mar 2022
News Activision Blizzard Hit With New Harassment And Discrimination Lawsuit
"700 reported incidents occurring under CEO Robert Kotick’s watch"
Activision Blizzard has been hit with a fresh lawsuit that claims the company's "frat boy" environment has allowed 700 reported incidents of sexual harassment and discrimination. The suit has been filed by Attorney Lisa Bloom in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of a...
Wednesday23rd Mar 2022
News Blizzard Confirms Doomfist Will Be A Tank Hero In Overwatch 2
Class swap
Blizzard will be making some big changes in the upcoming release Overwatch 2, and the latest reveal is the Street Fighter-inspired brawler Doomfist will be changed from damage to tank class. Game director Aaron Keller shared a bit more detail in a livestream last week - explaining how Doomfist's "leap" would be similar to Winston. He...
Friday11th Mar 2022
News Overwatch Director Admits Dev Team Has Let Down The Game's Community
Will now release Overwatch 2's PVP mode "sooner"
Since the departure of game director Jeff Kaplan from the Overwatch team, the game's sequel seems to have gone missing. After announcing Overwatch 2 would drop the second tank slot from the game's PVP team battle mode last May, Blizzard then revealed the game had been
Tuesday11th Jan 2022
News Overwatch 2 LEGO Set Gets Shelved Following Activision Blizzard Lawsuit
"We are currently reviewing our partnership," says LEGO
The LEGO Overwatch 2 "Titan" set pictured above was scheduled to come out next month, but The LEGO Group has decided to postpone the release following accusations of harassment, discrimination, and misconduct at the California-based offices of Activision Blizzard. Activision Blizzard, the...
Tuesday23rd Nov 2021
"They run counter to my values as well as Nintendo’s beliefs"
Update: Nintendo has now officially confirmed this in a PR response to Fanbyte: “We can confirm the content of Doug Bowser’s internal email to Nintendo of America staff is accurate. We have nothing further to share on this topic.” Nintendo of America's president Doug Bowser...
Friday19th Nov 2021
News Activision Blizzard Employees Stage A Walkout Calling For CEO Bobby Kotick's Resignation
Update: Over 1300 employees sign a petition calling for Kotick to go
Update: More than 1300 Activision Blizzard employees have signed a petition demanding that CEO Bobby Kotick resign in the wake of this week's Wall Street Journal report alleging his failure to act on knowledge of misconduct at studios within the company. At the time of writing,...
Wednesday3rd Nov 2021
News Blizzard Has Delayed Overwatch 2 (Again)
Diablo IV is also getting a "later launch"
When Blizzard announced a sequel to its team-based hero shooter Overwatch in 2019, it made it clear it was still a while away. It's now been delayed again - with the company announcing during a recent investor call that's it's planning a "later launch" for Overwatch 2 to ensure the game reaches its "full...
Thursday28th Oct 2021
News Vicarious Visions Staff Left "Blindsided" By Reported Merger With Embattled Blizzard
All is not well at the Diablo II: Resurrected studio
Vicarious Visions – the studio behind multiple Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero and Skylanders entries – is to be merged with Blizzard, it is being reported. According to Polygon, which has spoken to various staff at the studio, the decision to abandon the Vicarious Visions name and...
Saturday23rd Oct 2021
News Blizzard Has Officially Renamed Overwatch's McCree
Say hello to Cole Cassidy
As you might recall, Blizzard announced it would be changing the name McCree - the popular cowboy gunslinger in its team-based first-person shooter, Overwatch. In case you missed the original announcement, the character was named after one of the now ex-employees linked to the recent harassment and discrimination lawsuit -...
Friday15th Oct 2021
News Diablo II: Resurrected Is Still Being Plagued By Hellish Server Outages
Blizzard issues an update
In the month of September, Blizzard launched Diablo II: Resurrected - a remaster of its classic ARPG hack-and-slash, originally released on computers two decades ago. While this remaster encountered some teething issues at launch, players were (mostly) still able to access the online mode, grind levels and access their...
Friday27th Aug 2021
News Blizzard Outlines Plans To Rename Popular Overwatch Character
A new story arc will introduce a new name for McCree
Blizzard has announced via the official Overwatch Twitter account that it plans to change the name of popular character McCree. In a statement (below), the makers of the popular multiplayer FPS outlined plans to rename the character originally named after former Blizzard designer Jesse McCree,...
Tuesday3rd Aug 2021
News Blizzard President J. Allen Brack Is Leaving The Company
Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra to replace him
Content warning: Please be aware that the following article and the sources linked within touch on topics including discrimination, sexual harassment and assault, and suicide. On July 21st, Bloomberg Law reported that Activision Blizzard — the multi-billion dollar company behind Diablo, Ov
Thursday22nd Jul 2021
News Activision Blizzard Sued Over Culture Of Harassment And Discrimination
Allegations of "sexual harassment with no repercussion"
Content warning: Please be aware that the following article and the sources linked within touch on topics including discrimination, sexual harassment and assault, and suicide. A lawsuit has been filed against Activision Blizzard, Inc., owners of Diablo, Overwatch, and MMORPG World of Warcraft...
Tuesday20th Jul 2021
News Take A Look At The New Skins In Overwatch's Summer Update
Cupcakes! Scuba gear! Mermaids!
Grab your sunscreen and a cooler full of light beer, it's time to head to the beach in Overwatch's new Summer Games update. And also, the football pitch. And the grill, and the bar. Following the launch of cross-play last month, Summer Games 2021 will bring back Lucioball for players to team up on across consoles,...
Friday2nd Jul 2021
News Industry Veteran "Zoid" Retires And Reminisces About A Conference Call With Miyamoto
Call me by my (nick)name
Blizzard's most senior software engineer David "Zoid" Kirsch has announced his retirement from the company and the games business. The industry veteran has an enviable list of credits to his name, having worked for some of the biggest companies in the business and some of the biggest games of the last 20 years, including...
Sunday27th Jun 2021
News Overwatch 2 Is Still Coming To Switch, But Blizzard Will Have To Make "Some Compromises"
Focus will be on gameplay features first
It's been an uphill battle for developers porting next-generation titles to the Switch since the system arrived in 2017. While we've seen some "impossible" ports like The Witcher 3 and DOOM, often studios have to make serious comprises to get certain games up and running on Nintendo's hybrid hardware. When...
Wednesday23rd Jun 2021
News Switch Overwatch Players Can Now Team Up With Xbox, PlayStation And PC Heroes
The cross-play beta has arrived
Overwatch has made some massive announcements in recent times under the new game director Aaron Keller, and today sees the arrival of a long-awaited update: cross-play. Yes, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and PC heroes can now play together. Just be mindful that it's still technically in beta. In order to participate in...
Monday14th Jun 2021
News Diablo II: Resurrected Unleashes Hell On Switch This September
Evil returns
Following on from its announcement back in February, Blizzard has now locked in a release date for Diablo II: Resurrected. Hell will be unleashed once again on 23rd September this year. You can now also wishlist the game over on Nintendo's website. Here's the descript
Wednesday9th Jun 2021
News Cross-Play Is Coming To Overwatch
And thus begins world peace
What the world needs now is cross-play, sweet cross-play. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. Luckily, Overwatch is now allowing us all to play games with each other no matter what consoles we have with their new Cross-Play Beta, available to anyone with a Battle.net account. “When Battle.net first...
Friday21st May 2021
News Overwatch 2 Is Removing The Second Tank Slot From PVP Teams
Each team will be comprised of just five players each
There's a major change coming to the player vs player component of Overwatch and the upcoming release Overwatch 2. According to the game's new director, Aaron Keller (Jeff Kaplan's replacement), Overwatch PVP matches will be reduced from six players per team, down to just five. Sorry Tank...
Sunday16th May 2021
News Blizzard To Showcase New PVP Overwatch Maps In Special Fifth Anniversary Livestream
A developer AMA will follow on May 24th
Although many within the Overwatch community are still recovering from the departure of game director Jeff Kaplan last month, the latest developer update has now been posted. It's hosted by Aaron Keller - a founding member of the original Overwatch team and Jeff's replacement - and focuses on "what's next"...
Tuesday20th Apr 2021
News Overwatch Director Jeff Kaplan Leaves Blizzard After Almost 20 Years
His watch is over
Jeff Kaplan has a lot of strings to his bow, but now he's bowing out. As the Vice President of Blizzard Entertainment and the Director and public face of Overwatch, he's quite the well-known figure, but in an announcement today, he announced that he's leaving the company after almost two decades of service. Here's his letter, in...
