Blizzard Watch Weekly: Summer Sale

For those of you who enjoy following the escapades of my ridiculously overstuffed steam wishlist, I am here to report that during this Summer Sale, there are 75 items on it on sale at or above 80% off. It may be time to do a little pruning. Eh, let Future Anna handle it.

While I deny that I have a problem with organization, 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?

• Overwatch 2 season 17 begins June 24
• Midsummer Fire Festival in World of Warcraft, June 21 – July 5
• Overwatch 2 Pride Celebration, May 30 – June 30
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl: Tol Barad Brawl (Wild, Constructed)
• Active Twitch Drop campaigns
• Epic Games Store free game of the week: Sable

The Midsummer Fire Festival kicked off this week in WoW and there are new rewards in store this year. The ice stone has melted, or whatever.

Overwatch 2 kicked off season 17. This season is mostly about small balance changes, so aside from new map Aatlis and a few additions to the Stadium mode from last season, there isn’t a ton to report.

We got news this week about King Krush, the painfully adorable upcoming Hearthstone pet. To get it, you have to pay an exorbitant amount of cash, wading through a scummy gatcha mechanic to do so. The dev team literally said “first one’s free,” like a sketchy dude in a trench coat next to a middle school slinging pills.

But, as a palate cleanser, we have this week’s equally cute Pallas Cats. So, there’s a small spot of good in the world, at least.

 What’s Happening Next Week (and beyond)

• The Druid class is added to Diablo Immortal July 3
• The Lost City of Un’Goro Hearthstone expansion releases July 8
• WoW Classic Anniversary Realms phase 5 releases July 10
• Mists of Pandaria Classic: prepatch July 1, full release July 21

June is almost over, which definitely seems like some kind of cosmic error. As such, the Pride month event in Overwatch 2 is concluding this coming week. To try to make the transition easier, starting July 1 you’ll be able to purchase the new GI Joe crossover skins.

The prepatch for Mists of Pandaria Classic is releasing July 1, so things like the Pandaren race will be available then, just before the release of the full expansion July 21.

Also, though this is, again, completely unbelievable, but June is almost over, so we have a slate of new items for the trading post in July.

Later in this week, Diablo Immortal enthusiasts will be glad to hear the Druid class is now an option for play. We sat down with the developers for a lengthy chat about this new class.

In far-distant news, the WoW team has announced their presence at gamescom in August, which will contain eyes emoji levels of intriguing info about the upcoming expansion Midnight.

This week’s podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: Ghosts of K’aresh, from Tazavesh to Manaforge Omega
• Lore Watch Podcast: Who are the Lorewalkers (and why do they know so much)?
• Tavern Watch Plays Masks, Episode 3: A blast from the past

This week we discussed the upcoming Ghosts of K’aresh content update coming soon to WoW. We simultaneously have a lot to discuss, but not a lot of the details (like when it’s coming, exactly, for instance). This news comes hot on the heels of the last content update, which included the Lorewalking feature. This week our Lore Watchers discussed the history of Lorewalkers in the game.

Lastly, this was our final session of our Masks playthrough on Tavern Watch, so if you’ve been listening along this one is a can’t miss, and if you haven’t, you have a treat ahead of you.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, and we’ll meet you back here next week.