Blizzard Watch WeeklyOct 26, 2026 9:00 am CT

Blizzard Watch Weekly: Everyone’s looking towards Forever

By Elizabeth Harper

While there were plenty of happenings last week — with a new Hearthstone expansion and a new phase for The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary realms — I think all eyes are on World of Warcraft: Forever, which launches next week, and it’s a little hard to get excited about anything else.

But for now, let’s pause for a moment on this Monday morning and catch up on what’s been going on in Blizzard games over the last week, and what’s coming up this week.

What happened last week?

Hallow’s End is live in World of Warcraft, and in Midnight it adds new quests to the Player Housing Neighborhoods, letting you trick-or-treat and catch ghosts. And, of course there’s new decor to buy.
The World of Warcraft: Forever beta is no more, ending in a very vanilla style with Infernals and raid bosses spawning outside Orgrimmar and Stormwind so the beta population went out in a blaze of glory. Forever will launch on November 4, so the game will be playable for everyone in another week.
The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary realms launched phase 3.5, bringing the raid Zul’Aman to the game.
The latest Hearthstone expansion, Reign of the Black Empire, is now live, and it’s packed with all of the Old God goodness (or badness) that you might expect. Eric’s working on an article about the art and lore, so you can look forward to that soon(tm).
This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl is a fun one: the Black Empire Recipe Brawl. Just pick a class and you’ll get one of the latest decks to show off the cards in the new expansion. Practically the opposite of the Brawliseum last week.

What’s happening this week (and beyond)

October 27 – November 3: WoW: Forever early name reservation available
October 27 – November 3: Diablo 4 patch 3.3.0 PTR live
Through November 3: Cuddly Gold-Colored Grrgl WoW Twitch Drop available
November 4: WoW: Forever launches
Through November 11: WoW Hallow’s End
November 17: World of Warcraft D&D book launches

Other things we’re playing, watching, and more

Liz and Mitch are still trying to solve mysteries of Blake Manor in indie game The Séance of Blake Manor, and they may actually be making some progress. You can watch the latest episode here, and if you haven’t been following along you can watch all of the episodes of Blake Manor (so far) on YouTube or catch us streaming indie games on Twitch (and follow us to get notifications when we’re live).

There are once again two free games in the Epic Games Store this week, zombie shooter Sker Ritual and pixel horror adventure Home. Get both of ’em free before Thursday.