Christian Thoma

This week is the first Steam Next Fest of 2025 and, as always, we are excited to try out new game demos.

After complaining for the past 10 days that I hadn’t gotten any of the mounts (I’m including the Renewed Proto-Drake Love Armor in that category) I finally had RNG on my side and got the Love Witch Sweeper yesterday. While not as prestigious as the X-45 Heartbreaker it is a nice addition to my mount collection. Inspired by this success I decided to take all my alts through the Crown Chemical Co. fight to see if I could get the Armor or Heartbreaker with low odds — with the promise that whichever character landed me either would get priority with leveling and gearing for the rest of the expansion!

Sadly my offer was refused and I got zilch. On the plus side I had a little time to get my characters cleaned up while waiting in queue, and I even discovered a level 70 toon that had really, really bad gear for their level and wasn’t even a member of my guild, the Undeleted. I’ve mostly rectified the issues, but I’m disappointed the attention didn’t get me a mount. Ah well, there’s still a week of attempts left.

While I sit in queue waiting to be disappointed, let’s answer some questions!

We now have a date for The War Within's first major patch: patch 11.1 is going live on February 25, so hopefully you're all prepared to head down into Undermine.

Love is in the Air is back and just in case you haven't gotten the X-45 Heartbreaker or the Dragonriding Armor yet there's another new rare mount that can drop from the Crown Chemical Co: the Love Witch Sweeper mount.

Love is in the Air -- aka the holiday of mounts that don't drop for me at all -- starts this week and I'm going to be honest and state there is way too much happening concurrently in the World of Warcraft.

The Lunar Festival has begun so it’s time for my annual gripe: where the heck are the Elders of Pandaria? The Pandaren literally have spirits of their ancestors as regular residents on the island and yet none of them give us lucky red envelopes. This oversight still bugs me, and seeing that Khaz Algar was getting Elders kinda angered me.

Fortunately they did a fantastic job with the new Elders. They recognized the fact that actual spirit Elders of the three NPC races made no sense and instead turned it into a way of instructing residents of the past — one of the Earthen Archivists was even pretending to be an Elder for immersion. Kudos to the development team for not just mindlessly adding spirit Elders to the zones but finding a way to expand on the holiday. Now if they could just turn their attention to the southern continent …

While I cruise around everywhere but Pandaria collecting Coins of Ancestry for the cool new mount let’s answer some questions!

Raid skips which let you bypass earlier bosses to fight (and farm) the later bosses have been a regular feature since Warlords of Draenor and in some cases have even been added retroactively such as in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid.

The Liberation of Undermine raid arriving with The War Within patch 11.1 is testing out a brand new feature: Raid Renown.

Well it's finally happened: the Switch 2 has been announced!

January is the cruelest month, at least for those of us who follow gaming. Relatively few titles get released as many studios made sure to get them out before Christmas or are waiting until February and there also tends not to be many events where news could happen.

This year may be a huge exception though. Microsoft announced there will be an Xbox Direct next Thursday showcasing South of Midnight, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and DOOM: The Dark Ages — and a secret fourth title rumored to be from a “legendary” Japanese IP with decades of history. The rumor mill is in full swing over what this title might be with guesses ranging from Persona 6 to a new Final Fantasy title to even a new entry in the Ecco the Dolphin series.

The even bigger rumor that’s resounding throughout gamingdom is that we’ll finally be getting the Switch 2 announcement tomorrow. As of this moment there is no confirmation, but the report is credible and major outlets are treating it as highly likely. By this time on Friday we may be have all the details on Nintendo’s next generation console.

While we patiently look forward to jubilation or disappointment, let’s answer some questions!