Blizzard Watch

Blizzard Watch Weekly: Welcome to the new beta (it’s a lot like the old alpha)

Added 2025-11-10 16:14:22 +0000 UTC

There’s not much longer to wait for the Midnight beta to launch, but if you’re waiting for the latest news about Midnight (and/or player housing), you may as well catch up on last week’s news first. Here’s the rundown of what’s happening in the world of our favorite games this week.

What happened last week?

BlizzCon tickets went on sale with early bird pricing on Friday, but all of those early tickets are now gone. Full ticket sales (for the full price of $289.99) go on sale November 18. Sales seemed to go smoothly, and we have a guide on how to buy tickets to give you better odds of getting your tickets in the next round.
Legion Remix Phase 3 launched with Legionfall, adding the Broken Shore zone, Cathedral of Eternal Night dungeon, and Tomb of Sargeras raid. The new phase comes with continued confusion about being able to earn hidden artifact appearances, which Blizzard initially said you would be able to get during Remix — but it turns out is’s some, not all.
Blizzard confirmed that it’s adding a new cash currency to buy housing items in World of Warcraft, and I have not stopped sighing since. We’ll have an op-ed when I get some coherent thoughts together.
A whole slew of Diablo 4 news has come out of a bunch of recent community interviews with the dev team, including an upcoming solo self-found mode and a possible teaser for a future paladin-esque class, perhaps to be announced at The Game Awards this year. Rhykkr has a great recap, or watch interviews with Raxxanterax, Rob2628, and 더큐TV_DuQ.
Hearthstone’s Across the Timeways expansion launched, in which Chromie breaks all the rules to bring us some interesting alternate universe heroes to play with (as new Fabled Legendary cards) in this timey-wimey xpac.
This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl is the Timeways Recipe brawl, which gives you a chance to give some meta decks a trial run. These brawls are always a good way to get a feel for the latest expansion (and decide if it’s worth crafting cards to build some of these decks for yourself).

But we had a couple of good posts that don’t tie into any specific events this week:

Midnight addons. Midnight is coming with a whole lot of addon changes that could have a big impact on how you play the game, so Sara has put together the details of what’s changing — and which of your favorite addons won’t be joining you in Midnight. The situation continues to evolve as Blizzard loosens some of the UI restrictions in the Midnight alpha test, and we’ll report back if the situation changes.
Skyriding in patch 11.2.7. Skyriding is in for some big changes before Midnight launches: in patch 11.2.7, Vigor is (more or less) no more, which will shake up how you fly. Joan has a writeup and video covering how the system works on the PTR.

What’s happening this week (and beyond)

November 11: WoW Midnight beta launches! You can sign up for the test now or pre-purchase the Epic Edition for guaranteed beta access. The beta will launch with most of the expansion’s content, minus raids, Mythic+, high-tier Delves, the new transmog system, UI improvements, more housing customization, and some other features.
November 18: Legion Remix phase 4, including the Argus zone, Seat of the Triumvirate dungeon, and Antorus the Burning Throne raid. We just had a new Legion Remix phase the week before last, but they’re coming fast!
December 2: Player Housing early access launches. It’s not clear whether this means patch 11.2.7 launches on the same day or if it goes live earlier, but either way we can expect both around this time.
Through January 19: Legion Remix

Other things we’re playing, watching, and more

Games Done Queer, a new event from our friends at Games Done Quick, ran last weekend! If you missed it, you can now enjoy watching all of the speedruns in VOD — our favorites are linked from our writeup of the event, or you can go straight to GDQ’s YouTube page.
Felix the Reaper is the most adorable grim reaper we ever did see, and the game is free on the Epic Games Store through Thursday. Get reaping, friends.
Watching videos of baby hippo Mars is one of my favorite pastimes, and it could be yours too with this collection of Mars sitting down when everyone wants him to stand up.
We’ve rounded up a list of our favorite TTRPG content creators, from gameplay reviews to actual plays. And no, it’s not just Critical Role (though Critical Role is good too).