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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.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s campaign mode a week early, if they’ve pre-ordered.A statement from Activision reads: “Anyone who preorders a digital edition of Modern Warfare 2 will receive early campaign access in addition to a host of other previously announced rewards. This grants you up to a week to complete the incredible multimission, single-player, globe-trotting operation before the full game launches.”A description of the campaign explains how “familiar heroes return and new allies are formed as Task Force 141 faces its greatest threat yet – a newly aligned menace with deep, yet unknown connections.”“This campaign features missions in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and is set to be an incredible experience on numerous levels: offshore sieges with underwater combat, all-out explosive assaults from 30,000 feet above enemy strongholds, and high-stakes, low-profile stealth missions in both plain sight and under the cover of darkness.”The announcement comes alongside a new trailer which can be seen below:Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is set to launch October 28.Infinity Ward also recently confirmed a series of beta tests.

Activision Blizzard suggests that Diablo 4 may include microtransactions.The apparent survey was posted to the Diablo 4 subreddit in German but was helpfully translated to English by user BellasaurusRawr, and it is mainly focused on pricing (via PCGamesN).The survey includes mentions of different types of microtransactions that may appear in the final product. It features some basic Diablo 4 assets as well and explains which version of the game will come with extra content, while also asking fans what they’re most likely to purchase.For example, the optional bundles mainly consist of character armour, some of which are pictured in the survey, as well as a variety of different horse mounts – a first for the series, and extra cosmetics like back ornaments.The design descriptions for the character armour explain that players will receive a total of five skins, one for each Diablo 4 class.There’s also the mention of a battle pass with “premium rewards for playing,” but these will only be “cosmetic,” as well as an Early Access period for purchasing specific bundles which will give consumers seven days to play before release, or two days depending on the version.An in-game currency called Platinum is included too, which will be used for purchasing cosmetic items from the in-game store.

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.

Call of Duty: Warzone being removed by Activision Blizzard due to accusations of plagiarism, the publisher has issued an apology to the original artist.Artist Sail Lin took to Twitter on July 29 to allege their original work from 2019 had been stolen by the company, pointing out clear imitations by Activision for the “Loyal Samoyed” skin in Call of Duty: Warzone.Lin told Kotaku that they hadn’t been in contact with Activision and had no idea that the publisher was going to add the skin to the game. Both versions have the same backpack, hip pouch and elbow pad as well as clothing being virtually identical, with no colour changes being made.At the time, Lin had reached out to Activision for an “explanation or compensation” and hoped the situation would be “settled soon”.

Activision Blizzard has published a financial report that shows that more than half of the total revenue came from mobile games in the last quarter, more than PC and console games combined.The report covers the three months up to and including June 30, during which time Activision Blizzard earned £273.4million ($332million) from PC games, and £309.6million ($376million) from console sales. Staggeringly, from “mobile and ancillary” sales the company brought in £684.3million ($831million) therefore accounting for more than 50 per cent of total income.If Activision Blizzard were to include income from their “Other” category, which includes income from the Overwatch and Call of Duty leagues as well as its distribution business, which is at an impressive £86.5million ($105million), it still would be less than 50 per cent of its total revenue.At the same point last year console and mobile revenues were much more competitive with one another.

Activision Blizzard King has reported a loss of 11million monthly active users (MAUs) since March of this year.These player loss numbers come from the publisher’s quarterly financial results (published on August 1), with the Activision and King branches of the company seeing the biggest losses in monthly users.March of this year saw 372million players, whilst June saw 361million. Within the company, Activision’s monthly playerbase dropped from 100 to 94million, while Blizzard‘s went up from 22 to 27million and King fell from 250 to 240million.This decline follows an overall decline in average player counts over the last 12 months.

Call Of Duty: Warzone have been removed by Activision Blizzard after an artist alleged that the skin was plagiarising their work.Since the accusation, Activision Blizzard has pulled images of the dog skin from its website (via Eurogamer).Artist Sail Lin, who uploaded an image of a similar looking human-dog hybrid to ArtStation in 2019, took to Twitter on July 29 to claim that the skin was plagiarised. “Even though I am also a COD player, I am very disappointed to see my work being plagiarised by a big company like Activision in this way,” they wrote.“I have reached out to Activision for an explanation and/or compensation, and hopefully the situation will be settled soon.”According to Sail Lin they’ve now been contacted by Activision, as they wrote: “Activision has contacted me, and I hope to have a result as soon as possible.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 beta next week as part of the franchise’s Call Of Duty League.Viewers of the Call Of Duty League Championship Weekend in early August will be in with a chance of winning free beta codes. Those that tune into the Sunday event (August 7) on the competition’s YouTube channel will be eligible to receive a free code as a drop.There’s still not confirmed window for the beta, but it’s likely to be in September, before the full Modern Warfare 2 release in October.

Activision Blizzard, with the company’s Albany branch (formerly Vicarious Visions) making the bid.This makes the Albany QA branch the second potential union at the company, after the same department at Raven Software won its union election bid back in May. Called Game Workers Alliance (GWA) Albany, the new union issued a statement last night (July 19) via Twitter:“QA is currently an undervalued discipline in the games and software industries.

World Of Warcraft exploit bug which buffed warlock players’ Felguard minion is being used in high-end Mythic+ runs.Last week, it was reported that a player accidentally discovered a bug in Shadowlands‘ replayable, roguelike instance Torghast. The bug made it so when a warlock’s summonable Felguard minion received buffs within the instance, it still retained them outside once completed.

World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight will be removing gendered language from its character creation menu, according to the newly released alpha.The Dragonflight alpha went live yesterday (July 15) and gave players the first glimpse at what to expect from the new expansion. This included the revamped character creation screen which will now exclude the use of gender-specific terminology.In the existing game, when creating a character players are presented with either ‘male’ or ‘female’.

Microsoft’s record-breaking acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The report comes from business news publication CNBC, which notes that this is one of the first probes of the acquisition by a major antitrust enforcer. It’s stated the investigation will “consider whether the deal could harm competition and lead to worse outcomes for consumers – for example, through higher prices, lower quality, or reduced choice.”The Competition And Markets Authority has a September 1 deadline set for its initial decision, with a consultation lasting until July 20, 2022 while it takes feedback from third parties.The deal was announced back in January of this year for £58billion ($69billion), and is currently by far the most expensive acquisition in industry history.

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.

Shareholders of video game giant Activision Blizzard have voted in favor of a plan for an annual report on the company’s efforts to curb workplace abuse and harassment.

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.

Raven Software has announced that players will no longer be able to edit their loadouts in Call Of Duty: Warzone under certain circumstances. The developer made the announcement on Twitter yesterday (June 20), where it told player’s that they will no longer be able to change their loadouts when matchmaking or in a party.“Due to an unforeseen situation, we’ve disabled the ability to edit loadouts when joining to or matchmaking with another player’s party,” wrote Raven Software.❗️ Due to an unforeseen situation, we've disabled the ability to edit Loadouts when joining to or matchmaking with another Player's party.— Raven Software (@RavenSoftware) June 20, 2022The ability to edit loadouts in pre-game lobbies was a highly requested feature for some time, with it being introduced to Warzone at the start of Season 4 last year.This was removed at the time as Raven Software quickly realised that players could use it to get infinite Dead Silence – a field upgrade that completely silences a players movement and running – during matches.Last week the Mercenaries Of Fortune roadmap for Warzone and Vanguard was also revealed, which you can check out in full here.

Call Of Duty Ricochet Anti-Cheat has updated how it works, with cheaters now having their guns (and fists) taken from them.In a blog post from earlier this week (June 16), the Ricochet team laid out the progress in the system, with the “ebb and flow” of cheaters still to be expected in each of the games (via Eurogamer).“Today we’re sharing another mitigation technique from our toolbox: Disarm.” said the Anti-Cheat team. “Like the name implies, when cheaters are detected, we simply take their weapons away from them (including their fists).“We don’t expect many clips of this to find their way online, but we have seen it in action and the reactions from cheaters are always priceless.”The blog post also endeavours to answer community questions around cheating, as well as the news that Ricochet will be active in both Warzone 2 and Modern Warfare 2 the day each game releases.“Will you encounter cheaters? Sadly, perhaps yes, but we are working endlessly to be faster and better to get them out of the game (by force or by annoyance) and let you focus on fun,” adds the post.Warzone and Vanguard’s upcoming fourth season is also set to launch on June 22, with the roadmap highlighting what players can expect when it releases.

Diablo Immortal that the game neglects to ever tell you about.Diablo Immortal officially launched on June 2, and the consensus seems to be that while the game can be engaging and fun, the built-in paid elements are too egregious to ignore.This has caused the interesting dichotomy of the game being Blizzard’s biggest ever launch while simultaneously holding its lowest ever rating on Metacritic. In fact, Diablo Immortal now holds the dubious honour of having the lowest Metacritic user score ever.The concerns of players are chiefly with the microtransaction elements of the game, and rightfully so.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorGame giant Activision Blizzard said Friday it will commence talks with Communications Workers of America union representatives to negotiate a contract on behalf of 27 quality-assurance employees at Raven Software.On May 23, the QA team at Wisconsin-based development studio Raven Software successfully formed a CWA-affiliated union called the Game Workers Alliance. The union said at the time, “We look forward to working with management to positively shape our working conditions and the future of Activision Blizzard through a strong union contract.”On Friday, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in a memo to U.S.

Diablo Immortal has become Blizzard Entertainment‘s worst-reviewed game on Metacritic with a user score of 0.5 out of ten.According to the current user reviews on Metacritic of the free-to-play game, it has the label of “overwhelming dislike” and has over 3,120 negative reviews. This is based on 3,265 total user reviews as of writing (via, VGC).Diablo Immortal isn’t the only Blizzard game with a low user rating.

Activision Blizzard has released a “launch roadmap” for Diablo: Immortal in order to ensure a smooth launch for players.The mobile version will begin to appear on the Apple App Store and Play Store on the morning of June 1 ahead of the official launch on June 2. According to Blizzard, this is due to the “nature of how mobile games launch” and to ensure a “smooth full launch”.The MMORPG will be launching at 6pm on June 2 in the United Kingdom.

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.

Activision Blizzard King have created a tool to quantify how diverse game characters are based on several attributes, in hopes of better representing women and minority groups in its games.As reported by Fanbyte, the tool breaks down character attributes and rates them on how diverse they are.In a blog post, Eric Alt explains that King’s intention is to “inspire game teams…throughout the Activision Blizzard King network, to think outside the box and challenge preconceived notions around how characters should look and act.”The end result, King hopes, is for characters to “better represent women, non-binaries and other under-represented minorities in the industry.”The tool uses a set of character traits, including culture, race, age, cognitive ability, physical ability, body type, facial features/beauty, gender identity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background, to determine how diverse the character is.Once it establishes a baseline for typical character traits, which is set by the creative team working in consultation with diversity and inclusion experts, the tool can then weigh new character designs against it to measure their diversity.The tool was tested by development teams working on Call of Duty: Vanguard and also the developers at Blizzard working on Overwatch 2.The plan is to release the tool internally across Activision Blizzard King from the summer and into Q3 of this financial year, with the ultimate aim of making it widely available to use across the industry. In other news, Square Enix has outlined plans to establish new studios, after recently revealing it will sell off three of its western developers.The announcement was made during the publisher’s quarterly financial briefing.

Activision has acknowledged that the studio’s “own execution” caused a disappointing reception to Call Of Duty: Vanguard, and admitted the title “didn’t deliver as much innovation” as it would have liked.Shortly after Vanguard launched, it was reported that launch sales were down 40 per cent compared to the last Call Of Duty title, Black Ops Cold War.In Activision’s 2021 annual report, the company has now reflected on what it thinks went wrong for Vanguard.“[Vanguard] didn’t meet our expectations, we believe primarily due to our own execution,” said Activision.

Raven Software quality assurance (QA) staff at Activision Blizzard are eligible for a union election.As reported by The Washington Post, a decision on Friday (April 22) from the NLRB means the Game Workers Alliance (GWA) union can now vote on its formation.This follows Activision Blizzard’s decision to not recognise the union, and Microsoft’s – who recently acquired Activision Blizzard – choice to honour whatever the outcome, meaning it shouldn’t stand in the way of the GWA when the acquisition goes through next year.We are so proud to announce that the NLRB ruled that our unit is eligible for election! Thank you to everyone supporting our campaign since our initial strike up until this very moment! Time for democracy!

Activision Blizzard has dodged another bullet as a US District Judge has dismissed an investor lawsuit against the gaming company.Last August, a group of Activision Blizzard investors had filed a class action lawsuit against the gaming giant, soon after the California Department Of Fair Employment And Housing (DFEH) sued the company over issues with its workplace culture.At the time, the Activision Blizzard investors claimed that the company had “made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose” a number of alleged issues, including discrimination, a “pervasive ‘frat boy’ workplace culture”, “unaddressed” complaints to HR and more.Yesterday (April 21), the class action suit was dismissed by a US District Judge, who said that the lawsuit suffered from “a lack of particularity”, per gamesindustry.biz. However, the judge also noted that the investors will be able to revise and re-file their complaint within 30 days if the issues are addressed.“To the extent plaintiffs allege that defendants must have known sexual harassment and discrimination were endemic by virtue of their respective positions at the company, the [first amended complaint] does not establish the requisite facts to support such a conclusion,” added the US District Judge.In response to the decision, a Activision Blizzard spokesperson said: “We are pleased with the court’s ruling that plaintiffs failed to establish their claims.” Activision Blizzard recently also settled another lawsuit with the U.S.

Activision Blizzard.On Tuesday (April 12), Melanie Proctor, assistant chief counsel at California’s DFEH, resigned.In an email (thanks, Bloomberg), Proctor said her resignation was in protest of her boss – chief counsel Janette Wipper – being fired by California governor Gavin Newsom.Proctor alleged that in recent weeks, Newsom and his office “began to interfere” with the DFEH’s lawsuit against Activision Blizzard.“The office of the governor repeatedly demanded advance notice of litigation strategy and of next steps in the litigation,” said Proctor, who also alleged that “as we continued to win in state court, this interference increased, mimicking the interests of Activision’s counsel.”Proctor added that Wipper had “attempted to protect” the DFEH’s independence, which she claims resulted in her being “abruptly terminated”.The lawyer said her own resignation is “in protest of the interference and Janette’s termination,” and went on to say that “justice should be administered equally, not favouring those with political influence.”A spokesperson for Newsom has responded, stating “claims of interference by our office are categorically false”.A spokesperson for Wipper has also commented, claiming the lawyer is “evaluating all avenues of legal recourse,” over her termination, including “a claim under the California Whistleblower Protection Act”.Though Activision Blizzard recently settled a lawsuit with the U.S.

Call Of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone Season 3 will begin later this month, as confirmed by a new trailer.Called “Classified Arms,” an announcement yesterday (April 13) confirmed that Season 3 will launch on April 27. The official cinematic trailer for Vanguard and Warzone Season 3 can be watched below.Whilst nothing has been confirmed just yet, many players think Season 3 will include a crossover with Legendary’s MonsterVerse – which includes the likes of Godzilla and King Kong – thanks to a noise heard at the end of the trailer.At the 1:14 mark in the trailer, a noise that’s nearly identical to the Orca from the MonsterVerse movies can be heard.

Activision Blizzard has removed the Covid-19 staff vaccine mandate, the company has changed its decision.Employees protested the decision, which no longer required them to have the Covid-19 vaccine in order to return to the office.

Overwatch 2 suggests that the upcoming shooter will include a battle Pass system.As reported by Attack of the Fanboy (via EuroGamer), Jayson Kirby – senior UI artist at Blizzard – recently shared some screenshots which showcased screenshots of Overwatch 2‘s in-game menus.One screenshot in particular – which shows “early conceptual work for the new Overwatch 2 main menu” – details a ‘battle pass’ option. Though much may have changed since the concept art was designed – and Blizzard is yet to confirm any sort of battle pass for Overwatch 2 – it does suggest that the sequel to Overwatch will include the system.A battle pass typically comes in the form of a real-money purchase that allows players to complete challenges in return for cosmetic and in-game currency unlocks.

Blizzard itself, the name and theme of the next World Of Warcraft expansion may have been revealed.Thanks to a public source code update on the official World Of Warcraft website, it appears as though the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game’s next expansion will be called “Dragonflight” (via Wowhead).This is supported by the mention of Base, Heroic and Epic purchase options for Dragonflight in the website’s public source code, as World Of Warcraft’s last expansion, Shadowlands, also has these three purchase options.The public source code also points to the website dragonflight.blizzard.com – which is currently inactive – and as Wowhead notes, this website appears to have been certified last week.Official news of the game’s next expansion will be coming soon, as Blizzard confirmed last month that it will be revealed on April 19, saying: “We’re excited to show you what we’ve been working on and where your adventures in Azeroth will go next.”This supposed Dragonflight expansion may be released in 2022, as since 2008’s Wrath Of the Lich King expansion for World Of Warcraft each expansion has been released two years apart. That said, the pandemic’s impact may have pushed the release back into 2023, and there’s no confirmed release date yet.Activision Blizzard is currently mired by misconduct allegations that surfaced in the middle of last year, and since Microsoft announced it was acquiring the company, multiple US Senators have accused the Xbox-owner of protecting Activision Blizzard’s CEO Bobby Kotick.Activision Blizzard also settled a federal lawsuit last month for around £13.7million, although it is still involved in other legal proceedings at this time.

Activision Blizzard has removed the Covid-19 staff vaccine mandate, saying it’s no longer required for office work.As reported by Kotaku, in a company-wide email sent from Activision Blizzard executive Brian Bulatao, it was said that all employees are expected to return to the office in June, following the Covid-19  stay-at-home restrictions.Shared by ABK Worker Alliance’s Jessica Gonzalez on Twitter, the publisher will not be enforcing proof of vaccination to be allowed back in the office.LEAKED: Brian Bulatao emailed all of ABK to talk returning to office in June. They will not be enforcing proof of vaccination.

Activision Blizzard has settled its lawsuit with the U.S.

Activision Blizzard said Tuesday a federal court will approve its $18 million settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over a lawsuit charging sexual harassment and retaliation.