BlizzCon dates World of Warcraft Forever as EVE Online sets a range limit on alliance fleets

Blizzard announced World of Warcraft: Forever, a full new game set in a reimagined original Azeroth that sits alongside modern and Classic WoW. It launches November 4, and the beta began September 17.

• —Launch is November 4, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. PST, and access is included with a World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time.
• —Forever is set after the Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom campaign and before Molten Core. Players return to the original continents and adventure to level 60.
• —Beta access comes with the Skyborne Epic Pack or the Warcraft Forever Collection. The Skyborne Heroic Pack carries Early Name Reservation and the new Skyborne race.
• —On the modern game, Eclipse was revealed as Midnight's final major content update, set in the worldcore and leading into The Last Titan.

Blizzard used the BlizzCon 2026 opening ceremony to announce Diablo V for Spring 2029, an Amazon class pack for Diablo IV in 2027, an animated Diablo series with Netflix, and Diablo IV on Nintendo Switch 2.

• —Diablo V is set in a Sanctuary where Diablo has won and its heroes have been defeated. Blizzard is taking sign-ups for updates at Diablo5.Blizzard.com.
• —The Amazon hails from the island of Skovos and plays across four archetypes: Champion, Skirmisher, Ranger and Commander. She brings the javelin, a new weapon type for Diablo IV, alongside the bow.
• —The Switch 2 release is the Diablo IV: Age of Hatred Collection, bundling the base game with the Vessel of Hatred and Lord of Hatred expansions.
• —Switch 2 supports mouse and keyboard over USB. Joy-Con 2 mouse functionality is not supported.

Season of Hell's Legacy is live. A questline led by Deckard Cain sends players into Waking Nightmares rebuilt from earlier Diablo games to collect three Splinters of Evil. The base game is free on Steam to level 30 until 21 September.

• —Only one Splinter is borne at a time. Diablo's modifies Helltide and Infernal Hordes, Baal's the Undercity and Lair Bosses, and Mephisto's the Pit and Nightmare Dungeons.
• —Each reputation track has eight activity modifiers and six upgrades to an Iconic Power that erupts in combat. The Splinter also makes its bearer more vulnerable to that Prime Evil.
• —The largest Waking Nightmares are fixed-difficulty Capstone dungeons, replayable on Torment levels and offered as pinnacle Capstones at Torment 10 and above.
• —Up to three Soul Splinter gems fit in jewelry slots, each pairing a boon with a liability.

Blizzard revealed Doctrine, a Support hero and ally of Doomfist, as Overwatch's Hero 54, along with a new Escort map and reworks for Sombra and Roadhog. Season 5 closes the Reign of Talon arc.

• —Season 5 launches October 6 and carries Doctrine's official roster debut. His limited-time Hero Trial ran through September 14.
• —Sombra moves from the Damage role into Support as part of her Season 5 rework, which lands alongside Roadhog's.
• —The Mythic Voucher is earned by playing one game after the Opening Ceremony and redeemed by October 5 for a complete Mythic bundle from Seasons 1-14. Aspects are not included.
• —Watchpoint: Grímsvötn is an Escort map set at an Icelandic volcano prison. Overwatch Spotlight returns in February 2027 with a roadmap for the year ahead.

Blizzard's panel recap covers Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom, available now, and Patch 3.0, which adds a Definitive Edition graphics mode for all Warcraft III: Reforged players and a new Tavern hero.

• —The Forsaken Paladin is a new Tavern hero, available at no additional cost in multiplayer, with Classic, Reforged and Definitive Edition graphics.
• —Definitive Edition rebuilds more than 600 units and refreshes environments, lighting, effects and structures. Classic graphics stay selectable and cross-graphics play remains supported.
• —The campaign is the paid part. It sells on the Battle.net Shop, requires Warcraft III: Reforged, and unlocks a prologue and three campaign chapters.
• —It runs about 30 hours with nearly an hour of in-game cinematics: a four-mission prologue, then a soft-open single-player structure with an expanded inventory and talent system.

Blizzard announced STARCRAFT, an original open-world shooter set in the Koprulu Sector, for Spring 2030. The opening ceremony recap gives it one short paragraph and no further detail.

• —The recap carries no StarCraft II news at all: no patch, no season, no ladder or balance note, and no word on the existing games.
• —Elsewhere in the same recap, Hearthstone's Reign of the Black Empire expansion arrives October 20 and Heroes of the Storm adds Xal'atath on September 28.

The Cradle of War major update lands on 22 September. Ansiblex jump bridges gain a capacitor that drains per ship and costs more the further the destination sits from the owning alliance's capital, and only that alliance may use them.

• —The charge recharges slowly, and once it is spent further traffic waits. A new battlecruiser site appears in Insurgency systems at corruption stage two and above.
• —Bridges carry subcapitals only, and coalition allies lose access entirely.
• —Insurgency FOB reinforcement cycles shorten, payouts for Ice Refinery Heist and Mining Op Ambush sites drop, and more of the reward moves to winning the Insurgency itself.
• —Observatory Flashpoints fall from 15 pilots to 12 and Vigilance Points rise from 10 to 12. Marauders and black ops battleships lose mass.

Update 1.5 adds a full single-player mode, detailed rule settings for self-hosted servers, the end of the Book One story and a PvE route through every system. Consoles have a head start now and a full launch on 22 September.

• —Self-hosted PC servers are free and hold up to 40 concurrent players, with control over sandstorms, security zones, multipliers, base decay and death drops. Funcom calls the feature experimental.
• —Official characters can play on any official server and can move to a private or self-hosted one, but not back.
• —The Deep Desert runs as separate PvE and PvP instances, and the PvP one pays 2.5x on mining and harvesting. Hagga Basin is fully PvE.
• —Base upkeep taxes are gone, the Landsraad is rebuilt around repeatable missions with party sharing, and anyone who plays between 17 September and 22 October receives the Matron's Decor reward.

Season 21 removes on-demand World Event Raid Voyages for good and, as a season-long experiment, takes 'Dive To' off every Voyage and Tall Tale. Custom Seas gains saved Layouts, a silver editor and ship damage switches.

• —Each Custom Seas location stores up to 30 Layouts. New commands set time speed and edit silver per player or crew, and new switches disable health regeneration or ship damage by part.
• —The Chest of Fortune can drop from eight emergent World Events, with a rare chance of three at once.
• —Guild Emissary Ledgers pay out the Peaceful Skies painting, the Strong Together ornament and the Guild of Daring Diversions title.
• —The Parley Pennant event runs to 22 September, and the next Bilge Rats Weekender is 16 to 19 October.

Update 1.30 is on Experimental as the first stage of the Badlands expansion, which Bohemia dates for 15 October. It brings two motorbikes with new two-wheeled physics, more than 150 redrawn inventory icons and reworked infected attacks.

• —The moped and the enduro get leaning physics and crash ragdolls, tested on dedicated "Many Motorbikes" Experimental servers.
• —Infected now choose upward, centered or downward attacks by the height of the target's head, and gain a running heavy attack.
• —Bohemia warns modders that the animation system changes may cause problems with animation-related mods.
• —Some Badlands assets are being held back from Experimental until release.

The 4.5 'Cygnus' open beta is closing and the update is expected on Tuesday 22 September. Pop groups are no longer split by ethics or faction, a change Paradox flags in capitals as breaking save compatibility.

• —Exclusive Harvesting Rights was pulled from 4.5 for more balancing after beta feedback.
• —New Fleet Doctrine, Weapon Preference and Defense Preference policies steer the auto-designer for players and AI alike.
• —Federations can pass laws granting members free Commercial Pacts or Research Agreements, and Trade Leagues get the pacts automatically.
• —Several multiplayer out-of-sync fixes are in, including one triggered by colonizing with a designation selected. Paradox says 4.5 has more bugfix entries than 2.0.2 and 3.0.1 combined.

The second and last day of the open Launch Scale Test ran on 18 September on Steam and PURPLE, with no keys or sign-up. All progress is wiped afterwards and nothing carries to Advanced Access, which opens on 30 September.

• —Six hours a day, twelve in total, with the level cap held at 37.
• —Shops, passes, the marketplace, the Quna exchange and player trading were all switched off.
• —Steam players must uninstall the Playtest app and download the game separately for Advanced Access.