Blizzard Watch Weekly: Diablo 4 beta, Aberrus Race to World First, WoW patch 10.1.5, and everything else that happened this week

There is so much going on in the world of Blizzard Entertainment right now that I’m going to skip the prattle and get straight to the news. Here’s everything that’s been going on over the past week — and everything you should watch out for coming soon.

Now live

• The Diablo 4 Server Slam beta just went live today and runs through Sunday at 12pm pacific, and includes several cosmetic rewards you can earn that will carry over to the live game. If you’re even remotely interested in Diablo 4, this is a good opportunity to check it out to see how the game plays. Anyone can participate in this stress test — you just need to download the client for PC, PlayStation, or Xbox. Personally, I think the game plays great on consoles and have tried it on both PlayStation and Xbox without issue.
• Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible raid is now live in WoW, letting everyone explore Neltharian’s long-lost laboratory — and I do mean everyone, because it’s available in Normal, Heroic, Mythic, and LFR (wing 1), so everyone from the most casual to the most hardcore player has something to do. You’ll also be able to take on the Zaqali Elders, a new World Boss encounter in Zaralek Cavern.
• The WoW Race to World First has begun! Team Liquid and Echo currently tied for first place in the Aberrus RWF at 5/9 bosses. The race is just starting to get interesting, and there are lots of guilds and players you can watch on Twitch right now.
• Fyrakk Assaults are now live in WoW if you’re looking for some nice open world PVE content rather than jumping into the raid game. These assaults award loot as well as Drake’s Shadowflame Crests which can upgrade gear to ilevel 424, among other things, and you can earn the Still Standing in the Fire achievement if you let Fyrakk kill you. (Which you may do accidentally anyway.)
• Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 4 also launched. This is one of the biggest shakeups Battlegrounds has ever had, and it’s been a seismic shift in the meta. If you enjoy Battlegrounds, you should check it out, and if you don’t enjoy Battlegrounds… well, maybe check it out anyway, because it’s changed since you last played.
• There are lots of Twitch drops this week! You can currently get the Brann Bronzegill Hearthstone Battlegrounds skin by watching one hour of Hearthstone content (through May 16), the Blazing Hippogryph WoW mount by watching four hours of WoW content (through May 17), and an Overwatch toolbox spray and toolbox souvenir by watching five (total) hours of Overwatch content (through May 22).
• The Starwatch: Galactic Rescue event in Overwatch 2 runs from May 9 – 24, so you have a fair bit of time to check out this new 4v4 mode. It includes a bit of story about the Infinite Empire, giving you a bit of (completely non-canonical) lore behind this season’s galactic-themed skins.

Coming soon

• A BlizzCon announcement is on its way — expect to hear something about this previously-annual event next week, or the week after at latest. If Blizzard follows typical trends, the convention will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center the first weekend in November… but after such a long break, it’s possible we’ll see a different version of BlizzCon this year.
• Diablo 4 really has hit the point where it’s coming soon! The game is due out in just three weeks, launching on June 6. We had a dev livestream event that gave us a lot of details on the Seasons and Battle Pass, and even though there are microtransactions, this isn’t another Diablo Immortal. The only things you can buy for real money in Diablo 4 are cosmetics. With the first Season due to start in July, we’ll get to see it in action fairly soon.
• WoW patch 10.1.5 isn’t exactly coming soon, but we got a big preview of it this week. Most notably, the patch adds a new specialization for Evokers: Augmentation. This is a DPS spec, but it focuses on supporting other players with buffs — and it will be interesting to see this one-of-a-kind spec in action. The patch also features a new timey-wimey mega-dungeon starring the Infinite Dragonflight and Iridikron, as well as the Kalimdor Grand Prix dragon races and dragonriding in Azeroth. This is going to be a huge patch, and you can read our summary of patch changes for an overview or the full 10.1.5 patch notes if you want to dig into every detail.

Just for fun

• Patch 10.1 sure has a lot of snails. One snail, in particular — Big Slick in the City — has gone on to help Rextroy solo Dathea in Vault of the Incarnates. The Dathea fight was tough even with a full raid group, but apparently this snail was all we needed. (But I don’t recommend trying this yourself — Slick the snail has supposedly been nerfed.)
• Rob came up with some Diablo-themed drinks to help celebrate this weekend’s beta.
• Dragon daycare. That is all.

That’s all for this week, friends! I hope to run into you in the Diablo 4 beta this weekend.