The Queue: besties!

I’m so thrilled to have a version of my bestie Red to hang out with in Spirit City. The only downside is, he really clashes with my color scheme just now. Maybe we’ll just be besties around Christmas? But then, I have a ton of other cute little gingerbread guys to use then. Eh, we’ll see.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us the questions and we’ll get around to answering just as soon as we renovate.

On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, augh.

This feels like a good patch cadence, and it also seems like one which is broadly maintainable. The features they’re adding are neat but not completely outlandish in scope — except for maybe player housing. There are a couple neat little new things, but many of the core features are clockwork: a dungeon, a raid, a zone. Some new system, some new currency and faction. A few new story beats for sparkle.

But for me personally I am beyond a point of burnout with WoW, where every time something new is announced it sounds very neat, but also each new thing just adds to the pile of stuff. And it’s not like playing a regular RPG or whatever, where there’s any kind of finish line to aim for. It’s just heaps of stuff added to more stuff with stuff on top. I am so deeply overwhelmed with WoW that it feels like I’m being buried alive to even contemplate it. Usually with big tasks I set small goals, but with WoW any baby steps are just a drop in the ocean, but if the ocean also got progressively deeper every three months.

Happy for y’all. But I want to scream.

It’s funny, I keep lightly dipping my toes in every season, and I’ve been finding that the core issue for my enjoyment of Overwatch is the social aspect. It’s not the opponents telling me I’m trash — it’s the idea of letting my allies down. Of course, I’m rusty and inexperienced with the newer Heroes, and the brackets I’m playing in are hardly gunning for Grandmaster or anything. It ends up being a self-reinforcing thing, because it feels so bad to play that I get less and less playtime, so I fall further and further behind in game knowledge and my skill (such as it is) degrades over time.

I have invested a decent amount of time into the Hero Mastery Courses, and I’ll play Mystery Heroes sometimes, but I have so much to do and so little time I don’t feel like playing something that makes me anxious as I play it. I mean, unless it’s survival horror and a choice I made going in, that’s kind of the point.

I’m going to conjecture February or March. We know– they have declared — that there will be a BlizzCon in 2026. It will likely be in November, if it hasn’t been announced yet (I honestly don’t remember whether it has). The team is going to want to show off everything big and huge and flashy that they possibly can, which means they’re going to want to show off the final expansion in the three-expansion arc, The Last Titan. So I’m going to say they’re going to try to get Midnight out the door ASAP so they’re not making a big to-do of the next big thing while we’re all still waiting on the final patch and narrative conclusion of Midnight.

I definitely would — and it would be a console — though I’d be curious as to all the parameters at play. Could I binge a Metroidvania (because yes, it’s gonna be a Metroidvania) for four hours over a weekend and then not have to deal with it for the rest of the month? If I wind up kinda sorta enjoying myself do I have to switch genres? Does time paused in menus looking up gear upgrade paths or consumable types or crafting combos on the wiki count as playing (I think yes, honestly)?