The Queue: I have a new best friend

My new best friend is named Ethrandil, and he’s the only one in Azeroth who seems to be with me on this snake thing. Why are we here on cursed snake island? Why is anyone here? Why are we slaves to this torment and when can we go home?

We are now besties, bonded for life over our mutual terror, because the exposure therapy of spending so much time on cursed snake island is not helping. (And yes, you’re going to get to hear me talk about this for the next six months. Blame Blizzard.)

But while I bask in the joy of new-found friendship, this is the Queue, our daily Q&A column where I try to answer your questions in between bouts of being terrified of certain fanged reptiles. Let’s get to the questions!

Dragon Age 2. The story and voice acting are both top notch, but the graphics feel their age, the gameplay was clunky from day 1, and every time you leave Kirkwall you’re going to the same cave (and even when you’re in Kirkwall it’s the same alleyway everywhere). This is a best in class narrative game, but it doesn’t shine the way it might with more modern graphics, more varied environments, and a way to play the game without having to deal with Anders all the time. (The only characters that can be specced to heal the party are Anders and either Hawke or their sister Bethany… but if Hawke is a mage who can be specced into healing, then Bethany is dead, so it’s one or the other.) It’s a great game already, but I think it would really shine with a glow up.

We’re never getting another Dragon Age game anyway, so it’s literally no loss. With the only okay performance of Veilguard followed up by EA being eaten up in the largest leveraged buyout in history, we’re never getting another good game from EA again, so even daydreaming about it is silly.   The newly acquired Electronic Arts is $20 billion of debt, and its new owners intend to deal with that by cutting costs and leaning into AI. If the company doesn’t go bankrupt in the next year I’ll be surprised.  The interest payments alone on that much debt will eat them alive.

This was announced by Blizzard and CD Projekt Red this week at Gamescom, and it’s an interesting move to build on the Battle.net platform with more non-Blizzard games. Microsoft games I expected, but third party games I was surprised by. And they say it’s “just the beginning.”

Does that mean more third-party games on Battle.net? Does it mean game collaborations between Blizzard and CD Projekt Red?

Right now we don’t know anything, but we’re certain to learn more soon: BlizzCon is only a couple of weeks away.

There are the usual suspects, content we know is coming regardless that we’ll hear more about at BlizzCon. But there have to be some surprises in store, too, or I don’t think they’d bother having a BlizzCon, and particularly not at this odd, off-schedule time in September.

For WoW, that means more details on the next few patches. 12.0.5, 12.0.7, and perhaps 12.2. Maybe we’ll see a slightly more detailed roadmap zooming in on the next six months or so. And though it feels early for it, without much to talk about in WoW because we’ve only just had a new patch, I think we may get some big picture news about The Last Titan, even though I don’t think Blizzard will want to go into a lot of detail because we’re still a long way from knowing how Midnight ends.

For WoW Classic, we’ll probably find Mists of Pandaria transitioning into Warlords of Dreanor progression realms. We might hear more about upcoming Burning Crusade Anniversary phases or scheduling, but Phase 3 (Black Temple and Mount Hyjal) is only launching today, and BlizzCon is just two weeks away. I strongly suspect the big announcement will be some kind of Classic+, that adds new content to the Classic format much like Season of Discovery. Rumors have been spinning about this for years, but with Season of Discovery gone dormant after its last experimental phase that added the all new Scarlet Enclave, I feel like the team must have been working on something behind the scenes. Perhaps we’ll see a new, bigger Season of Discovery, or perhaps it will be an all new game mode focusing on new content. I suspect this will be a stand-out announcement.

For Hearthstone, it’s around the time to think about a new expansion. Hints suggest that we may have a new class coming soon, which could be part of an expansion or perhaps a stand-alone release if it’s still early to talk about the next xpac, and they want to make a splash of it. Could we be seeing a monk, perhaps?

Diablo 4 will certainly be talking about its next season, which launches on September 15. We already know about the season, but announced content is light and Blizzard has already said they’ll tell us more at BlizzCon… hopefully something exciting. I feel like it’s too early to talk about the next Diablo expansion if it’s going to be two years between releases, but maybe they’re tightening up that schedule, and will announce a new expansion featuring Diablo, Baal, or even Malthael. Maybe we’ll see even more fan-favorite classes, like the Amazon, which would be a great fit for the current expansion. But I’m not sure what we might see here simply because it’s such a strange spot on the schedule for Diablo 4, because it’s been less than six months since the last expansion. I’m not expecting anything of note from other Diablo games, but Immortal will probably have a new patch on offer; it’s too early for a new Diablo 2 season or Diablo 3 season.

For Heroes of the Storm… well, I live in hopium with Cory. It’s a good game, and it’s been getting a regular schedule of balance patches and updates this year, with a patch about every eight weeks. That’s a pretty consistent cycle for a “dead” game. I think it could be ready to be shoved back into the prime lineup. I’m not holding my breath, but I think it’s in the realm of possibility.

For StarCraft, I really do think this is coming back, I just don’t know when, how, or in what format. Microsoft bought Blizzard recognizing the power of this IP, and I don’t think it will let StarCraft sit dormant like Activision-Blizzard was.

Then there’s that CD Projekt Red thing. Are they working on something with Blizzard? Are we going to get a surprise game collab, or just a bunch of new games in the Battle.net launcher?

After so many BlizzCons, it’s hard to surprise us. We’ll see if Blizzard manages it.

September is only packed for me because of BlizzCon, really. Game-wise I’m interested in Control Resonant, but haven’t actually played the first Control game (though I bought it on sale recently). I like the vibes of the game, but it hasn’t gotten to the top of my list, and I want to do the first before the second. Resonant won’t be a day one buy, so while it is an interesting game coming out in September it’s not one that’s going to be occupying me.

There are a couple of indies on my wishlist that I might pick up if BlizzCon doesn’t drown me. Or maybe even if it does, for a change of pace. Ship Shaper is a model ship building game that looks very chill, and it will be in early access next week. File under maybe. ShoreTiles is a charming citybuilder in which you build a town around a lighthouse and try to keep it from being destroyed by eldritch horrors. Maybe it’s actually more of a tower defense game.

What am I supposed to be looking forward to? What’s everyone else looking forward to?

That’s it for this week. Take care of yourselves and hang in there; we’re heading into the weekend soon. I’ll see you in the comments section.