WRUP: This weekend, we’re talking all about…

It’s been an exciting week, largely because of the new World of Warcraft expansion announcement — but also because sometimes, it’s just really nice to see things come full circle.

Speaking of old things, it’s Friday and this is WRUP — What aRe yoU Playing — a once-dead column in which we all talk about what shenanigans we’re getting up to this weekend. As a bonus, many of the staff have also weighed in on their Dragonflight first impressions. Keep reading to see what we think, and maybe discover all kinds of fun facts along the way!

Rob Flanagan

• Our Flag Means Death
• Assassin’s Creed Black Flag

Watching Our Flag Means Death has me replaying Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. I will be sailing around the Caribbean, singing shanties, raiding ships, and stabbing people in the Assassin’s Creed way. My other plan this weekend is to use my 3D printer to start working on a Moon Knight-themed cosplay with a giant Khonshu mask. Going off the size of it, this mask will be a multi-week project.

Rachelle Riddle

• World of Warcraft

For Dragonflight, I’m excited about new things and new areas in Azeroth. I always enjoy the beginnings of a new expansion, and the art/music teams knock it out of the park. I’m cautiously optimistic about the promises of redoing the systems and no borrowed power. The “wizard chores” and needing to log on every day have taken a toll on me and my friends. We’re not that young anymore. I miss Mists of Pandaria when we had weekly goals (remember the “complete 7 random dungeons” instead of each day?), and I hope they will focus on keeping players long-term rather than trying to increase daily activity. I tend to play more and enjoy the game more when I can spend my time doing leisurely transmog runs rather than feeling pressured to complete daily goals.

As far as what I’m playing, still WoW! I have limited time during the week and it’s usually a single game competing with watching Critical Role. I’m still exploring the new content and now bringing alts in. I’m a healer at heart, I love my Priest and it will always be my main, but Hunters are surprisingly fun to play!

Mitch “Mitch” Mitchell

• Overwatch
• Elden Ring(?)

I’m excited to see us going back to a more high fantasy setting, and honestly, it was really cool to just see a trailer that wasn’t “BIG BAD IN YOUR FACE” or “DOOM AND GLOOM!” This one was more “doom then bloom” and it’s cool to see an expansion not immediately tell you the world is ending.

As far as weekend plans, my GF and I will actually be taking a mini-trip to the west side of the state, so it’ll be minimal gaming here. I recently (like, this morning) beat Elden Ring and… well, I want to play it again. This dang game is so hard to put down, y’all. I think I’m gonna try to Platinum it and then maybe cut back and do some more casual playing of NG+ so I can actually fit in other games (like poor Horizon).

The Overwatch Anniversary Remix Pt. 1 ends soon, too, so I’ll be grinding that together as much as possible ahead of the — gasp — start of the PVP beta in less than a week.

Ted Atchley

• Star Wars: The Old Republic
• Nintendo Switch online library of classics

Dragonflight: I am so glad people are excited for the expansion, and I hope it’s everything WoW players are hoping for. The cinematic was awesome, but I was concerned with how much “hope to/plan to” was baked into the answers in the deep dives. There still seems to be a hyper-focus on high end competitive raiding and M+. I would have loved to hear more about how they plan to better support “the weekender” and the “friends and family” guilds in Dragonflight.

My biggest letdown was Evokers. For years people have been asking for Tink(er)ers, or Bards, or Necromancers, or Spell Breakers, or Dark Rangers. The concepts for those classes have a long and rich history in the World of Warcraft and in some cases all the way back to Warcraft 3. With all those options on the table, I’m bummed that they chose instead to develop Evokers. We’re unlikely to get a new class in back-to-back expansions, so anyone hoping for a Tinker, Bard, Necromancer, Dark Ranger, etc., is looking at 12.0 (2026?) at the earliest.

The highlight of the whole reveal day for me was the confirmation of Wrath of the Lich King Classic. I am so very tempted to resubscribe just to play that again, especially if they use the same ‘start with final patch’ model they used for Burning Crusade Classic.

On the WRUP side of things, my Bounty Hunter is in the mid-40s killing White Maw pirates on Hoth. The Bounty Hunter Origin Story is having something of a “muddled middle”. The first chapter was awesome, but the second chapter hasn’t had the same excitement. I hope it gets better in Chapter 3. My son and I are playing whatever he feels like on the Switch. It turns out an eleven-year-old changes what he feels like playing quite frequently. We’ll cycle through Lego Star Wars, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and Nintendo Online (Nintendo 64, SEGA, Super NES, NES).

Christian “Kalcheus” Thoma

Sips fancy drink. Falls asleep.

[Editor’s Note: He’s actually on vacation this week, but I assume this is close to what he’s doing.]

Anna Washenko

• Fire Emble: Three Houses
• Overwatch

I thought the Dragonflight cinematic was pretty rad. Who doesn’t like dragons and stoic statue guardians?

Games-wise, I accidentally fell back down the Fire Emblem rabbit hole, so if I get a big chunk of free time this weekend, I’ll be teaching the Golden Deer what’s what. Outside of my educational responsibilities, I’ll either dip into Overwatch for some more cosmetic unlocks or continue my belated forays into Unpacking, which I am digging quite a lot.

Phil Xavier

• Ys: Origin
• Tokyo Mirage Sessions

Dragonflight has made me excited about an upcoming expansion in a way that I hadn’t felt since Legion. I really like the theme this time around. And when it comes to gameplay systems, the promise of no more borrowed power, and the return to a talent tree are the two big features that have me very excited. I can’t wait to see the new talent trees emerging from alpha and beta testing; I always geek out majorly about that kind of stuff.

As for what I’m playing? I made a ton of progress on Ys: Origin, and I’ve passed the halfway mark. That game is getting harder and harder, but never overly punishing; you need to repeat boss fights a few times to learn patterns, but it never feels cheap or impossible. Just the way I like it!

I’m also working on Tokyo Mirage Sessions, and although I’m at the last chapter, I just found out that this game is far more open-ended than I had originally thought, with several optional side quests that I hadn’t been doing, even a full Arena full of optional battles and rewards. Well, turns out I want to do them. So I can expect this game to take me many, many more weeks to beat than I was originally expecting.

Andrew Powers

• Big Mouth
• Brunch?

My thoughts on Dragonflight were, “That looks amazing! I like what they’re doing with this! Those are some great changes! Love the dragon race/class combo.” And then Ion ended with, “And of course we’ll have a raid and mythic+.” And that reminded me, I don’t play WoW. That’s the game. They paint it up, add new customizations, make gorgeous zones. But if I don’t raid, PVP, or run Mythic+ dungeons, then I’m not really playing the main part of the game, and nothing they do can really help me with that, unless they really do focus on exploration, and make that aspect of the game truly engaging, enough that it is a game on its own.

I’m not really playing anything exciting. However, I’ve never watched the show Big Mouth. I watched Human Resources, which was a spinoff from it, and it was okay. So now I’m going back and watching Big Mouth. There are five seasons, that should at least last me through this weekend, maybe next week.

On Sunday I’m going out to brunch, with another couple. I’m not entirely sure when I became a yuppie, it must have been recent as this is my first brunch, but here I am.

Matthew Rossi

• Cyberpunk 2077
• Bejeweled
• Untitled Goose Game

I am not playing Duck Game. I’m also not playing Anatodaephobia: The Game or indeed any of the games on this list of duck-themed video games.

But I wish I was.

However, I’m still playing a ton of Cyberpunk 2077, Bejeweled in all of its forms, and I am downloading Untitled Goose Game — geese aren’t ducks but they are related to ducks in the Anatidea, and I’ve heard good things.

Ducks are cool is what I’m saying.

Anna Bell

• Cozy Grove
• The Long Dark

DUCKS!

Next week Cozy Grove‘s first DLC is coming out, so I’m probably going to spend as much time as possible beachcombing and fishing so I can afford the new hotness. I’m also debating a lot of the titles on sale for Earth Day on Steam. So many of them are worldbuilding sims, so right up my alley. All else fails, I’ll wind up back in The Long Dark, slowly but surely arranging all the junk I’ve found and living another day. Ah, perseverance.

 

That’s Team Blizzard Watch for this weekend! I hope you all enjoy your internet-dragon adventures now and in the future! If you have a second, why not let us know what you’re up to this weekend?