Blizzard Watch Weekly: Where all the best work gets done

Almost every time I need to give something a title — especially podcasts — or I just need to think about it for a minute, I go outside and dig a hole or shovel mulch about it. A little physical repetitive task really helps me think. Plus, there is nothing on this earth that tastes better than a tomato you grew yourself. Anyway, if you need me, I’m gonna be here for the next few months.

Here, grab a pitchfork while we take a look back at what happened this week, and what we have to look forward to next week, plus some stuff you may have missed.

What happened this week?

• WoW Children’s Week holiday April 28 through May 5
• Diablo 4 season 7 end and season 8 start April 28
• Hearthstone Battlegrounds season 10 starts April 29
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl: Yellow Brick Brawl (Wild, Constructed)
• Active Twitch Drop campaigns
• Epic Games Store free game of the week: Super Space Club

First of the month means a new Trading Post in WoW. This month’s theme is kind of a woodland creatures vibe. I absolutely need that fox hoodie to be a real thing. Childrens’ Week is in full swing, and will conclude Tuesday. If you plan on grinding this out this weekend, we have a guide to the currency you need to grind and the neat stuff you get, just by being nice to some orphans.

We also have a guide to all the Breaknecking races in Undermine.

Diablo 4 season 8 went live this week, which includes a new season theme and the revamp of the battle pass into the Reliquary, which also contains a Battle Pass. It’s confusing, and if you’re just as confused about it as we are, there’s a whole post explaining it (I still don’t get it, but we tried).

And because we could all use a little cute animal to get us to the end of the week, this week’s Cute is the Rock Hyrax, a little loaf of a groundhog with fangs.

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, Liz just finished updating our whole, entire, point-by-point list of all the various text works of lore in Warcraft. Just reading the list will probably kill a half an hour for you.

What’s Happening Next Week (and beyond)

• Diablo 3 season 34 ends… uh, sometime soon?
• The War Within season 2 Turbo Boost begins May 13
• New Hearthstone miniset Embers of the World Tree releases May 13
• Nintendo Switch 2 releases June 5, with preorders beginning April 24 in the US and Canada
• World of Warcraft patch 11.1.7, Legacy of Arathor, releases Summer 2025

We started getting a few tidbits as to what we should expect from World of Warcraft patch 11.1.7, the release date of which is still TBA but was slated as sometime in early summer by the roadmap released at the beginning of the year. One of those things is a combat and rotation helper similar to the wildly popular add on Hekili.

We also keep getting previews of the upcoming Player Housing feature, which is nice and all, but honestly it just makes me want to get my own grubby mitts on it. Stop tempting me with something I can’t have!

We predicted Diablo 3 season 34 would end on May 4, but since it’s Friday evening and we haven’t heard word yet, we’re predicting… we’ll find out eventually. But probably not next week.

This week’s podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: Truly, transmog is the endgame of all things
• Lore Watch Podcast: Gallywix is only mostly dead, and other listener questions
• Tavern Watch Plays Pigeon’s 11, Episode 3: All the pretzels you can eat (just gotta steal them first)

This week is the glorious conclusion of our playthrough of Pigeons 11, and I’m leading with both the show and the adjective glorious because words fail. Even if you haven’t been following along, you absolutely have to tune in for this one.

The Blizzard Watch Podcast featured our writer Eric O’Dea along with Liz and Joe, and the true endgame was the core topic. Of course, we’d also contend that things like decorating your Player Housing house is also technically transmog, but who’s counting. Lore Watch was a grab bag of different listener questions, from Marvel through Murder(ed Gallywix).