Blizzard has announced that its games are coming back to mainland China in summer 2024 after almost a year and a half off the market. Additionally, Microsoft (which now owns Blizzard) and NetEase have entered another separate agreement to bring NetEase games to Xbox and other platforms.
Blizzard’s games were taken offline in China in January 2023 after NetEase and Blizzard were unable to reach a new publishing deal. However, both companies have now reached one. The deal will include all of the games that Chinese players had access to from the previous agreement, including ones like Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft.
While both parties are working to relaunch the games, more details will be revealed later. Phil Spencer chimed in on Microsoft’s new partnership with NetEase, saying, “Returning Blizzard’s legendary games to players in China while exploring ways to bring more new titles to Xbox demonstrates our commitment to bringing more games to more players around the world.” However, Spencer provided no other specifics.
Thanks to the incredible work done by @Blizzard_Ent and NetEase to renew our commitment to players, we will soon welcome back millions of community members in China to our Blizzard universes. This is exciting for everyone at Xbox, Blizzard, and for players everywhere. Read more: https://t.co/JKuZAH6bLj
This new deal comes after Blizzard and NetEase had a bit of a falling out back in November 2022 when their oiriginal publishing contract was set to expire. Blizzard China and NetEase were pointing fingers at each other, where the former offered to extend services, but the latter declined it, with one NetEase executive claiming that the original deal extension fell apart because of one specific “jerk.”
Either way, Blizzard was committed to look for alternative ways to bring its games back to the Chinese market, but it finally reached a new agreement with NetEase.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
Last month, Bandai Namco announced brand new DLC called ‘Future Saga’ would be coming to the Dragon Ball: Xenoverse 2.
Now, in a small update on social media, it’s lifted the lid on two new playable characters which will be available in the first of four chapters. It’s the Dragon Ball Super versions of Android 18 and Videl. Here’s a look at both in action:
Starting today, Amazon is offering a new board game promotion: buy two board games, get a third one free (or “three for the price of two”). The list of eligible board games include several popular and highly rated titles like Wingspan, Azul, Splendor, Pandemic Legacy, Dead of Winter, and more. We’ve sorted out our favorite picks below.
Wingspan Board Game
Wingspan from Stonemeier Games is an incredibly good board game. It came out in 2019, but it’s still one of the best board games to play in 2024. Wingspan looks like a deceptively simple game; the endgame goal is to attract as many birds as you can to your wildlife preserve and help them proliferate. There are only four actions you can perform: draw a bird card, play a bird card, get food, and lay eggs. Sounds simple enough, right? Well let’s just say these four actions mask an incredibly complex engine-building game with which you will have to juggle between bringing new birds into the fold and keeping your existing birds well stocked and in a breeding frenzy. Wingspan is infinitely replayable, and you’ll find yourself developing and honing new strategies with every subsequent playthough.
Azul Board Game for $31.99
This is one of the best board games for beginners. With colorful plastic tiles and a simple premise – collect sets of similar tiles to score points – Azul is a great game for folks who want to dabble in the hobby of board games. The goal is to fill up a small grid, earning points by completing lines and connecting filled-in spots on your grid to each other. It’s been said before, but it rings true for Azul: It’s quick to learn, but it takes time to master and figure out strategies. This makes Azul a great addition to any existing board game player’s collection as well.
Spendor for $31.99
Splendor is a 2014 release that’s still considered one of the best board games for all experience levels. Economic engine games, where you build an increasingly powerful economy to buy stuff to build it even more, are a popular gaming sub-genre. They don’t come much simpler than this gem about… gem dealing. On your turn you take tokens to pay for gems, and each gem gives you a permanent boost to your token bank. It’s a race to engineer the most efficient economy and grab the best gems. The trouble is, everyone wants the best gems too. So every turn you pump your engine, you risk losing prime resources to other players. Throw in a variety of finicky patrons to please for bonus points and you’ve got an engine that generates as much tension as it does tactics.
Dead of Winter for $49.61
Dead of Winter is one of the best horror board games. It’s like the board game version of The Walking Dead. The game is described as a “meta-cooperative psychological survival game,” which means that, while it is cooperative, there are elements of competition that carry through the game. Each player controls a group survivors during the zombie apocalypse, and all must work together in order to meet the shared goal. In addition, you’ll be working towards your own hidden goal as well. Sometimes that means hoarding the most medicine, or stockpiling the most ammo. Other times, you might simply want to betray the team and ruin group morale. No matter what, though, there’s no way to trust anyone at the table thanks to the group politics and interpersonal drama Dead of Winter brings.
Pandemic Legacy for $71.99
If competitive gameplay isn’t your thing, how about working together to purge the world of infectious diseases? Building on the success of the original Pandemic, the Pandemic Legacy series introduces “legacy” concepts to the game, in which components are added or removed as you progress through the game, based on your decisions, successes and failures. After a few plays, your copy will be a unique record of your group’s play. So in addition to offering a very personal tale to engage you, Pandemic: Legacy also individualizes your strategic experience. We picked the Pandemic Legacy series as one of the best cooperative board games of 2024.
I’ve worked from home for most of the past decade, but it was during the pandemic lockdowns that I was finally indoctrinated into the world of co-working streams, pomodoro timers and lofi beats to chill/study to. I’m better now, but I absolutely see the appeal of Spirit City: Lofi Sessions, a “gamified focus tool” that just launched on Steam.
Blizzard has announced that a coming update to World of Warcraft: Classic re-introducing the fiery Cataclysm expansion will land on May 20.
Officially, Classic will heat up a little before that on April 30 with the pre-patch event. Cataclysm’s pre-patch back in the day was one doozy of a change, too. It introduced playable Worgen and Goblins, set the dragon Deathwing loose on Azeroth, and because of Deathwing’s escapades, transformed the entire landscape of Azeroth’s main continents.
The full expansion on May 20 will include seven new (to Classic) zones, nine new dungeons, three new raid dungeons, the Archeologu profession. Flying will be introduced to Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. Additionally, with the transformation of the main continents’ landscapes, numerous new quests will be introduces, while old ones will disappear forever. It’s a pretty drastic change to what the current map looks like: the Barrens splits in half, Thousand Needles goes underwater, and a chunk of Darkshore’s coastline is washed away.
Also, Deathwing is flying around and can randomly set entire zones on fire. Cool!
WoW Classic marches on
All of this reflects the changes to World of Warcraft initially introduced when Cataclysm was first released back in 2010, with very few exceptions. When Classic was first released, Blizzard’s goal was to give players an opportunity to experience World of Warcraft as it was when it first launched, rather than being forced to flock to player-run servers.
Experience your favorite Cataclysm moments faster than ever before!
📜 Pre-Patch – April 30 🌋 Launch – May 20 🌴 Rise of the Zandalari – July 2024 🔥 Rage of the Firelands – October 2024 🌙 Hour of Twilight – January 2025
But with Cataclysm, the world of Azeroth begins to more closely resemble what the game looks like now — minus several expansion-specific zones. The original World of Warcraft, as it was prior to all expansions, is still available as a Classic option, and Blizzard has introduced a number of special rules servers to spice it up such as Hard Mode and Season of Discovery.
World of Warcraft: Classic is available to anyone with a World of Warcraft subscription. Currently, Classic’s main servers are in the final days of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, with all raids and dungeons from that time available, including Icecrown Citadel.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
The original Gigantic blended MOBA and hero shooter ideas together at the height of the gold rush in both genres, but failed to carve off a large enough audience of its own and sadly shut down in 2018.
As of today, it’s back as Gigantic: Rampage Edition, with new characters, a new mode, and an upfront fee in place of its former free-to-play model.
Talking to co-founder Gennadiy Korol and CEO and creative director Thomas Mahler, Game Informer asked about the potential for a third game in the Ori series. Korol answered first, stating that the team “were pretty happy with where it left off,” and that the two games formed “a complete story.”
Gigantic: Rampage Edition is the definitive release of the original 5v5 MOBA Hero Shooter, Gigantic — available now on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One with crossplay support.
Rush Mode is a brand-new game mode that’s action-packed and fast-paced… get ready for non-stop action!
Find out what it takes to be an elite Rush Mode player thanks to the tips below.
The unique MOBA hero shooter, Gigantic, is making an epic comeback in a new definitive release, Gigantic: Rampage Edition – launching on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One on April 9, 2024! Gigantic: Rampage Edition will bring everything from the original game and introduce a ton of new content, including a new game mode “Rush”, cross platform play, new heroes, new maps, and gameplay improvements that will give you an even bigger and more complete Gigantic experience than ever before.
To help you get ready for the new mode, Rush, we’re giving you a speed run-like overview of everything you should know about the mode before you jump into it! You ready? We’re ready, let’s do this!
Rush Mode is a quick, fun and exciting mode for all players
If you’ve played the original Gigantic, you know how Gigantic can be… well… gigantic! With Rush Mode, we wanted to streamline the experience and did just that by condensing all the things that make Gigantic great to create a more accessible, fast-paced, and action-packed mode that all players can enjoy. When we say “fast-paced” we mean it, as Rush matches take just about 10 minutes to finish.
Before You Jump In: Play the Rush Tutorial, Find a Hero That’s Right for You, and Customize Your Experience
Gigantic: Rampage Edition comes with a ton of gameplay improvements compared to the original, including new tutorials to teach you the ins and outs of the game’s different modes, including Rush. We highly recommend playing at least the Rush tutorial in Rampage Edition, which will give you an excellent overview of what you need to know about the mode.
Once you wrap up the tutorial, you should then find a hero that’s right for you. In Gigantic: Rampage Edition there are 25 unique heroes to choose from, including two new heroes, Roland and Kajir, that weren’t in the original game. Each hero fits under a specific archetype and has their own distinct set of offensive and defensive capabilities, including their own “ultimate” abilities (called “Focus Skills” in-game.) Choosing a hero that fits your play style, whether you like to get up close and personal to take down enemies or take them down from a distance, is vital to increasing your chances of being victorious in matches.
After you’ve found a perfect hero for you, it’s then time to build and customize your loadout to match your playstyle! You can go with one of two predetermined builds, or you’d like to take a deeper dive into loadout creation, feel free to build your own when you’re ready. Having a loadout that works for you is important, but we can’t forget to mention that the most important part of choosing a hero… customizing it! As you make progress, you’ll be able to unlock and choose from a variety of hero and weapon skins and other customization options – and the best part is that you don’t need to spend a single penny to get anything, all of the content can be unlocked just by playing the game!
What’s neat about Rush compared to the existing mode Clash, aside from of course matches being lightning fast, is that you can change your hero mid-match, allowing you and your team to change strategies during matches. So, for instance, if you’re noticing the enemy team is just not giving you and your team any breathing room as they all are using melee DPS heroes against you, you can fight back by changing to a melee DPS hero yourself to go toe-to-toe with them. Knowing how and when to change heroes is important in Rush, but not only that, it’s also just a great way to learn how to use different heroes!
Another difference with Rush is heroes start at level 10, the max Hero level in the game. So, what that means is that you have access to all of a hero’s abilities from the get-go, making it even easier to get a feel for which hero is right for you. We highly recommend trying all abilities a hero has and figuring out what each ability does. Knowing the abilities in your arsenal is yet another way to being victorious!
Now you’re ready to GO GIGANTIC!
Now that you know all there is to know about Rush, we hope you’re ready to GO GIGANTIC and fight for victory when Gigantic: Rampage Edition is available now Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One for $19.99. Oh, and if you have friends on other platforms, don’t sweat it – Rampage Edition will have crossplay support when it launches – giving you the opportunity to enjoy Rush Mode with friends no matter what platform they like to play on. With all that said, we’re excited to see you on the airship in Gigantic: Rampage Edition!
Today Amazon is offering the official Xbox Series X|S Core wireless controller in Special Edition Dream Vapor for only $42.39 after you clip a $10.60 coupon from the product page. That’s a pretty hefty 40% off the original $69.99 MSRP. Aside from the difference in color, this is the same controller as the one that’s included with your Xbox Series X or S console.
Xbox Core Controller in Dream Vapor for $42.39
Dream Vapor is a dynamic pink and purple color swirl color that’s unique to each controller. It’s paired with a pink back face, pink d-pad and analog sticks, pink buttons with purple symbols, pink Xbox logo, and rubberized purple diamond-pattern grips.
This controller is based on the Xbox Series X|S controller design, but it will also work on Xbox One. It features textured triggers, bumpers, and back case, making it easier to hold. It also features the disc-like D-pad for more precise input in all eight directions, and the Share button to send your screenshots and video out into the world. This controller is also one of the best PC gamepads you can get; connect to it via either wireless Bluetooth or USB Type-C.
This year the best price we’ve seen for an Xbox Series X|S core controller has been about $44.00 for one of the standard black, white, or red controllers. The Dream Vapor Edition has been out for only a few months and currently takes the throne as the lowest priced Xbox controller we’ve seen so far for $2024.
Star Wars Outlaws might be one of Ubisoft’s most highly anticipated single-player games in a while, but you’ll still need an internet connection to install it.
Information on the next big Star Wars game spinoff comes from its box art and pre-order information, which became available on retailer websites (like Best Buy) across the internet today. Those who have already gone on to pre-purchase their copy ahead of its August launch might have glossed over the physical game case’s cover, which says “internet required to install the game” next to the ESRB rating.
It means that, even if you own a physical copy, you’ll need to be connected online when booting up Star Wars Outlaws for the first time. It’s currently unclear how large the installation will be.
Ubisoft confirmed with IGN that an internet connection is required to install Star Wars Outlaws and its updates, but otherwise, you’ll be free to play offline.
Star Wars Outlaws finally gave fans a clearer look at its narrative in a story trailer that was released today. It gave us an early look at leads Kay Vess and Nix and the crew they hope to assemble while also revealing more from some familiar faces. Most importantly, though, the video finally revealed a release date.
Expect to explore a galaxy far, far away once more when Star Wars Outlaws launches for PC via Ubisoft Connect, Amazon Luna, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S on August 30, 2024.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
