Blizzard Watch Weekly: Midnight goes to the Trolls in patch 12.1

It’s almost time! WoW patch 12.1 comes out this week, and it’s a big one. Like all major patches, we’ll be exploring a new zone, with plenty of world content, a new dungeon, new delves, and a brand new raid… and yes, it’s the long-awaited return of the Troll raid. There will be plenty to sink our metaphorical teeth into after the patch goes live on Tuesday — but please don’t bite any actual Trolls, at least not without their consent.

But that’s still a day away, so while we wait for the patch to launch, let’s catch up on what’s been going on in the world of Blizzard games, and what’s coming up this week.

What happened last week?

• A particularly destructive Player Housing bug lingered until WoW patch 12.1 was nearly ready to go live; but was fortunately fixed on Friday, so your blueprints should be safe when the patch comes back up on Tuesday.
• Housing dyes became temporarily Warbound last week, so you can’t trade them or put them on the Auction House. But things should go back to normal when patch 12.1 launches on Tuesday with a new, simplified dye system.
• Overwatch has announced its next hero: D.Mon, the leader of MEKA squadron and D.Va’s best frenemy. D.Mon goes live on August 11 with Season 4.
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl is Henchmania, and it allows you to play as a potential henchman hoping to join the League of E.V.I.L. Every hero has a unique hero power and a pre-built deck, and it can be a fun change of pace from the traditional meta — plus an easy free pack.
• There’s just one day left of Turbulent Timeways in World of Warcraft. It’s Dragonflight Timewalking through reset, so get in any last minute dungeons and pick up rewards before Timewalking vanishes again.

What’s happening this week (and beyond)

• August 11: WoW patch 12.1 launches, starting with a long maintenance. The servers are due to be offline until 3pm pacific (6pm eastern).
• August 11: Overwatch Season 4 begins with new hero D.Mon
• Through August 11: Diablo 4 patch 3.2.0 PTR concludes soon
• Through August 11: Turbulent Timeways in Midnight
• August 18: Midnight Season 2 begins as the
• August 27: The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary phase 3
• September 12 – 13: BlizzCon 2026
• November 17: World of Warcraft D&D book launches

Other things we’re playing, watching, and more

On our Thursday indie game stream, I’m still playing Desktop Explorer, but I think I’m getting pretty close to the end. It’s a surreal with big Windows 95 vibes and a Clippy-like companion who may be taking lessons from GLaDOS. Catch us live Thursday at 8pm eastern (follow us on Twitch to get notifications of this and any one-off streams), or watch on YouTube later. There are two more new episodes this week, both featuring Joe’s problem-solving skills:

• Blizzard Watch Plays Desktop Explorer, episode 5: Exploring a creepy abandoned virtual mall
• Blizzard Watch Plays Desktop Explorer, episode 6: Meet the Windows 95 version of an evil AI

This week’s free games on the Epic Games Store are the charming adventure game Beacon Pines and the co-op puzzle game We Were Here Together (which we love except for the co-op part, but nothing’s perfect). Grab both of them for free through Thursday.

Plus: we’re still waiting for  The Elder Scrolls 6. Possibly into retirement age at this point.

Our latest podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: Player Housing makes us want to dye
• Lore Watch Podcast: Dwelling on the Shadowlands in World of Warcraft
• Tavern Watch Podcast: The GenCon 2026 announcement roundup!

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back next week with another weekly news recap!