Blizzard Watch Weekly: Meal prep

I hope everyone enjoys red lentil dahl, because I followed a recipe that made a good gallon or so of the stuff. The serving suggestion of 4 cups of rice probably should’ve been the tipoff I was making a comically large amount of anything. So after carefully portioning and freezing, I don’t think I need to make dinner for the next six weeks or so, so it’s really a happy accident.

While I warm up some naan, let’s look back at what happened this week, what we have to look forward to next week, plus some stuff you may have missed.

What happened this week?

• Horrific Visions returned to WoW May 20
• Winds of Mysterious Fortune leveling boost ended May 20
• Mother’s Blessing Diablo 4 event ended May 20
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl: Visions of Sayge (Standard, Provided)
• Active Twitch Drop campaigns
• Epic Games Store free games of the week: Deliver At All Costs, Sifu, and Gigapocalypse.

Horrific Visions returned to WoW on Tuesday, and we’ve been really digging them. One point we especially like: the loot. While usually transmog is endgame for us, the new head enchants are pretty neat, too.

We’re all in on the latest entry in the Duck Detective series this week and we’re not even a little bit sorry. And to go with the cuteness that is Duck Detective how about some… armadillos? Eric gave us an unorthodox Cute column this week.

What’s Happening Next Week (and beyond)

• Diablo 4 patch 2.3.0 (Season 9) PTR launches May 27
• Diablo 3 season 34 ends June 1
• Nintendo Switch 2 releases June 5
• Battle for Azeroth Timewalking begins June 17
• World of Warcraft patch 11.1.7, Legacy of Arathor, releases Summer 2025

We’re beginning to see more hype-related content as we start winding our way to the next WoW expansion Midnight. Among these is our usual tertiary tie-in, a novel by Christie Golden. Blood Ties releases November 18, 2025, but is already available for pre-order. This is probably also a great spot to say that Liz put a ton of work into updating our massive work-by-work WoW lore guide. The guide alone is over 7,000 words, so clap for her.

We’re also starting up a more concrete speculation train for what we might expect out of player housing, this time, it’s how professions may tie in. This follows closely after some other lucky duck content creators got a hands-on preview of the upcoming Player Housing feature, including our first real look at neighborhoods.

We finally got the official end date of Diablo 3 season 34: June 1! Meanwhile, Diablo 4 is gearing up for its next PTR, which runs from May 27 – June 3. The patch 2.3.0 PTR Season 9’s new Horadric Spellcrafting customization as well as Nightmare Dungeon improvements — some specific to the upcoming season, some available for everyone.

And if all that seems kind of a long way off, you’re not wrong. I am knocking on all kinds of wood right now, but as far as anticipated releases and Blizzard goes, next week is going to be kind of a quiet one. Yep, I know, I’m a jinx, but there just aren’t a ton of events slated.

This week’s podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: Horrific Re-Visions and (another) player housing preview
• Lore Watch Podcast: How we’d make Azeroth into a D&D campaign
• Tavern Watch Plays Legend in the Mist, Episode 2: In which we learn that fairy tales aren’t always tales

Like much of the rest of the site, the Blizzard Watch Podcast this week was dominated by the return of Horrific Visions and the unstoppable hype train of player housing. But come on, you’ve seen how excited we are about transmog, of course we’d be all in on player housing. Lore Watch this week took a minute to mix together World of Warcraft and D&D, discussing how one of our favorite games might be adapted to a tabletop scenario.

Lastly, our Tavern Watch playthrough of Legend in the Mist continues, with lots of creepy twists and turns as Phil Ulrich continues to lead our adventurers through the story. Probably to their doom, but it’s a little too early to say for sure.

Hope you have a fantastic weekend — a holiday one if you’re in the US. We’ll be back on Monday. You don’t have to be, though.