WRUP: This weekend, Team Blizzard Watch is… mostly still all hooked on Diablo 4

Hello, Watchers, readers, and all others! It’s finally Friday, which means it’s also time for our weekly(ish) column, WRUP — What aRe yoU Playing? — where we talk about, well, exactly what we’re playing and doing in the coming days.

Whether you’re new here or a regular, it’s time to sit back, relax, and get ready to make the most of the weekend. Leading us off this week is the lovable Kalcheus.

Christian “Kalcheus” Thoma

• Persona 5 Strikers and Dancing in Starlight
• Harmony: Fall of Reverie
• Across the Spider-Verse

Taking a short break from D4 to finish up the P5 spinoffs this weekend so I can be prepared to devote my time to Final Fantasy 16 next weekend. I also want to give Harmony: Fall of Reverie a start, but P5S/DiS first.

I didn’t have a chance to see Across the Spider-Verse again yet so I’m going to do my darnedest this weekend to do so — yes, I’d rather watch it again than go see the Flash (which I’ll probably check out in a couple weeks).

Phil Xavier

• Diablo 4
• Octopath Traveler 2
• Final Fantasy 16 (demo)

Things are finally starting to slow down a bit on the Diablo 4 front for me, so time is opening up for other stuff. I hope to finally finish Octopath Traveler 2 (in fact, I might have already finished it by the time you read this!) and invest some time into the Final Fantasy 16 demo as well. I’ve dabbled into the demo for a bit and so far I loved what I saw. Let’s see how the rest of it plays out.

Renee Lopez

• Diablo 4
• Gotham rewatch
• The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

What? Diablo 4? Yes. I am convinced that I will never finish the game. But the good news is that I made it to Act III finally. I have managed to do most of the side quests and strongholds, so I’m feeling good about whatever “completionist” progress I seem to be making. It doesn’t help that I’m cycling through three characters: Rogue, Sorcerer, and Necromancer, I just finished watching Gotham, and now I’m going to rewatch it because my brain refuses to believe that it’s over. Eventually I’ll find another show to dive into. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will probably be the next one. I also finished Into the Dark by Claudia Grey and am now getting into the Stormlight Archives with The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I’m ready for this adventure.

Elizabeth Harper

• Diablo 4
• Mask of the Rose
• Critical Role / Candala Obscura

I am still very into Diablo 4, and continue to make progress with my Necromancer, who’s level 65. (I’d probably be making more progress, but I rolled a second Necromancer to try out different playstyles.) Red and I have been zerging Nightmare Dungeons, with the two of us crushing zones of mobs four or five levels above us, which feels pretty great. I’m continuing to dig the advancement system, though it feels like the whole thing slows down after you hit level 50.

However, if you play Diablo non-stop your wrists will regret it. I play on console, which doesn’t do a number on my wrists in the same way playing on PC does, but you still have to take breaks and do things other than play Diablo. Occasionally. I’ve also been playing Mask of the Rose, a visual novel set in the very weird world of Fallen London. I kickstarted it what feels like a lifetime ago and it had the misfortune to be released just after Diablo 4, so it’s been hard to make time. I have given it a playthrough, but I really need to figure out who the murderer is and how to help rats join the local church parish and this hat wants me to tell it my dreams and there may be a tentacle living in the basement… there’s a lot to do.

For things that do not involve any type of video game, I’ve been meaning to catch up on Critical Role and its new series Candala Obscura. While I enjoy them, the episodes are really long and sometimes I can’t keep my attention running for four hours, so I fall behind and then I fall more behind and… well, I’m pretty behind. It’s more than a weekend’s work to catch up, but I’m particularly interested in Candala Obscura. And because it’s brand new, I’m barely behind at all and don’t have to deal with the crushing weight of a backlog!

Joel Davis

• Not much
• Writing

Alternating between nocturnal and diurnal schedules in quick succession for the past couple of weeks has left me reeling a bit. I’ll be prioritizing any screen time for writing but might dip my toes into Diablo or WoW if I end up feeling reasonably productive.

Mitch “Mitch” Mitchell

• D&D planning
• Spider-verse (again)
• Diablo 4
• Tears of the Kingdom
• Concert!
• Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared

I absolutely need to work on my D&D campaign this weekend to prep for next week’s session. I have a lot planned in my head… but not so much officially on paper, which sort of helps a lot.

When I’m not doing that, it’ll be a mix of Diablo 4 with the GF, Tears of the Kingdom because omYogg this game is so good, and getting ready for a Used/Pierce the Veil concert (heck yeah!) Oh, and we’ll be seeing Across the Spider-verse again, this time with my family. Genuinely, it’s the best film of the year, and it will remain that way. Go see it, then see it again and again.

And how could I almost forget about Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared? It’s time for the annual re-watch, possibly timed so that we end right as it hits midnight on June 20. If you’ve never seen it, watch it, and enjoy (in the most “Mitch” sense of the word).

Somehow, weekends continue to go from completely open to absolutely booked, and goodness, I could take a month off work and still not catch up with everything I want to do. But at least it’s been fun stuff.

Sara Hanson

• Work
• WoW – heroic raiding
• D4

The project I’ve been on for the last year is deploying this weekend, so I’m on call from COB Thursday to COB Monday. I want to finish the D4 campaign this weekend and try and catch up on raiding given I”ve missed 2 weeks in the last month due to travel.

Matthew Rossi

• Diablo 4
• Cyberpunk 2077 getting my ducks in a row for Phantom Liberty
• Most of the games I have my eyes on aren’t out yet, like
  • Obsidian’s Avowed
  • Bethesda’s Starfield
  • The possibility of a new Fable actually coming out in my lifetime
  • Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws, because Liz is right that trailer looks pretty sick and I’m over my initial ‘meh’ response
  • Also I am cautiously excited for Dungeons of Hinterberg
  • I’m also desperately waiting for Starfinder Enhanced to come out

I considered skipping a paragraph again this week because I didn’t think the constant hammering of Diablo 4 in my head would be of interest to anyone. And frankly, right now, I’m very much thinking that I want to do a Pathfinder 2 campaign adapting one of the adventures like Abomination’s Vault or even the original Runelords to a Diablo-esque dungeon crawl. It’s kind of all my brain has room for.

Phil Ulrich

• Diablo 4
• Maybe some WoW?
• Pokemon Scarlet

Definitely going to be playing some more Diablo 4; I’ve gotten the taste for nightmare dungeons and their fun mix of affixes. It’s sort of the same feel as Mythic+ in WoW, but a lot faster. Also there’s one where a giant ominous rock chases you and if it reaches you it starts pulsing lightning; I don’t know why, but this is just hilarious to me every time — especially when it vanishes then charges out of an open door ahead of you like SURPRISE! ROCK’S HERE!

Speaking of Mythic+, very likely to fit some of that in this weekend in like usual, but some of my usual crew is moving and some are doing Father’s Day-related festivities, me included, so who knows how it’ll all shake out. I’m trying to get my ducks in a row for when augmentation evoker arrives in the near future, which mostly means lining up a bunch of mastery gear.

Also, on Saturday, there’s actually a Pokemon VGC local tournament in my area for once — I’m intending to show up to that and see what the local scene, which I didn’t even know existed, is like. Plus it’s extra practice for the North American International Championships at the end of June.

That’s us for this weekend! I hope you all have lovely and/or relaxing plans ahead, and if you have a moment, why not let us know: What aRe yoU Playing?