Blizzard Watch Weekly: Diablo 4 gets an expansion, Hearthstone gets an expansion announcement, and WoW patch 11.0.5 gets a release date

The week’s biggest Blizzard news is the semi-successful Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred launch, but we also have news of the next WoW patch and Hearthstone expansion — both of which I’m looking forward to.

Here’s a rundown of everything you might have missed this week, plus what’s on deck for next week.

What happened this week

• Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred launched, though it was one of the shakiest game launches we’ve seen lately. The game planned to roll out the latest patch, expansion, and season with no downtime, but instead had five hours of emergency maintenance, with a 40gb patch for Battle.net players to download once the servers were up. (I went to sleep rather than play.) The game is safely online now, letting you explore Nahantu, play the new Spiritborn class, collect Runewords, and recruit Mercenaries. But even if you don’t buy the expansion, Diablo 4 has a great many changes to the base game that frankly make it better than it’s ever been. And if you’re looking for loot, we’re in for four weeks of cosmetic Twitch Drops, plus there are new Warcraft-themed skins including Illidan, Jaina, and Arthas… but at $28 each, it’s hard to stomach the cost.
• The Great Dark Beyond is the next Hearthstone expansion, and it’s coming sooner than we expected, launching on November 5. After the somewhat bland beach-themed Perils in Paradise, I’m excited to see Hearthstone jump back into Warcraft themes… with a silly twist. This expansion sends us to space with the Draenei, and a new Starship keyword lets you build your very own spaceship with which to vanquish your foes.
• The WoW patch 11.0.5 release date has been announced! The next patch will go live on October 22 with WoW’s big anniversary bash, new Dracthyr classes, new Shaman Ascendance forms, and some nice quality of life improvements, like being able to fill crafting orders with materials from your Warbank.

If you’re still working your way through The War Within, Eric wrote a great checklist for things to do every week in Season 1. Even if you don’t go through the list every week, it’s a good rundown of what’s available. But if you’re looking for something new to do in WoW, we also have a list of the most difficult mounts to collect in The War Within (to go along with our list of the easiest mounts to collect this expansion). May as well start the mount hunt early, right?

Happening next week

• Overwatch’s Halloween Terror event returns on October 15, including the much-beloved Junkenstien’s Revenge and Wrath of the Bride PVE modes. However, there’s a new PVP mode try: Junkenstein’s Laboratory lets you modify your favorite hero’s abilities with unique talents, something we’ve always wanted to see in the game.
• Nerub-ar Palace Severed Strands raid buff will be available next week, but you need to start collecting Nerub-ar Finery from the raid this week (on any difficulty) to turn in. The buff is account-wide, so once you earn it, it will buff all of your characters running the latest raid.
• Diablo 3 Season 32 wraps up next Sunday, and Season 33 starts the following week. It’s another remix theme, bringing back Season 22’s Shadow Clones.

This week’s podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast:  Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred’s rocky roll out
• Lore Watch Podcast: Catch up on the Dragon Age: Inquisition story, the first in a three-part series covering Dragon Age games.

We’re in the midst of recording a bunch of bonus podcasts this month, including new tabletop podcasts that range from a D&D murder mystery to a Starfinder 2e space adventure that begins, as many of Matt’s adventures do, in a crashing ship. The first game will be out this month, with more to follow. If you enjoy our podcasts and want to listen to more of them, please support us on Patreon — it’s what lets us do these podcasts.

What to play this weekend

As I’ve pointed out, the Diablo 4 expansion is the big game this week, and certainly plenty of us here are giving ourselves repetitive stress injuries from all the clicking. However, if fighting off demons in the grim world of Sanctuary isn’t your thing, there are other options for weekend gaming. I myself have been replaying Dragon Age: Inquisition, but since the game isn’t presently on sale and retails for $40, it’s hard to recommend spending that much on this decade-old title. Still, if you picked it up previously but never got into it, it’s a good time to play before Dragon Age: The Veilguard comes out at the end of the month.

Other than that, it’s no surprise that we’re hyped about the newly released Metaphor: ReFantazio, a new title by a team of Persona devs. Or, if you’re in the mood for horror, Silent Hill 2 just got a remaster. Here are our recommendations for the week, which covers the and a few others.