Blizzard Entertainment

Patch 25.2, launching today, brings Battlegrounds Season 3 and more!

Battlegrounds Season 3 is Here!

Good news, everyone! Battlegrounds Season 3 brings Professor Putricide’s new Hero Power, Undead and dual-type minions, and tons more new and updated heroes and minions!

General Updates

• On January 17, Battlegrounds Season 2 will end and Battlegrounds Season 3 will begin. That means that rankings will reset, Battlegrounds Quests will be removed, minion pools will update, and the Battlegrounds Track will switch over. All rewards that were earned, but not yet claimed, from the Season 2 Track will be automatically claimed.
• The 15-damage Damage Cap will now persist until both a hero has died and the game has reached turn 8 (the 10 Gold turn).
• Armor will now appear ove...

Imagine loading into a game, choosing your hero, and making your way toward the objective. Everything seems to be going fine, but then you round the corner and come face to face with a big, angry, surprisingly Australian Zeus.

We hope you’re prepared to get smote (or is it smitten?) by the Zeus Junker Queen Mythic skin!

The Season 2 Mythic skin comes with customizable variations including different colors, armor pieces, and weapons. Regardless of your loadout, Zeus Junker Queen embodies a super-charged, electrical aesthetic that you see throughout her kit’s visual effects.

We've wrangled some insight from senior VFX artist, Greg Knowlton, about Junker Queen’s journey from sovereign of the scrapyard to ruler of the gods!

Visual effects fit for a Queen

“The biggest differences between Mythic sk...

It won’t be long before the new Trading Post* feature goes live, and with its arrival, players with Dragonflight will receive Bonus Trader’s Tender.

What a Tender Moment! 

As a way of saying “Thank you” to the community for continuing to play World of Warcraft with us, we will be awarding a bonus 500 Trader’s Tender to players who purchase Dragonflight and add it to their account**. This bonus Trader’s Tender will also be rewarded retroactively to players who have already purchased Dragonflight. Players can collect this bonus Trader’s Tender once the Trading Post feature goes live from their Collector’s Cache.

Good news, everyone, Battlegrounds Season 3 is nearly upon us! Starting on January 17, Professor Putricide will be taking over, replacing Battlegrounds Quests with all his new creations.

New Undead and Dual-Type Minions

Thirty-two new minions come crashing into Battlegrounds in the new Season, including 16 new Undead minions and 11 new dual-type minions! While the Undead revolve around death effects like Reborn and Deathrattle, Dual-type minions have synergies with two different minion types at the same time!

From now through January 19, we’re introducing an all-new game mode: Battle for Olympus. In this limited time free-for-all deathmatch, heroes go head-to-head, wielding the power of Greek gods, goddesses, and creatures.

Battle for Olympus will feature seven heroes that get special powers when they activate their divine ultimates that stack new effects on top of the ability. Alongside their divine ultimates, heroes have unique interactions with one another as they ascend from mortal to myth in Battle for Olympus.

Here’s the lineup of each team as well as their special powers: 

Poseidon Ramattra
Divine Annihilation

• Ravenous Vortex is a large whirlpool that pulls in enemies then launches them upward
• Pummel throws large water blasts that deal more damage and travel further

Zeus Junker Queen
Divine Rampage

• Lasts 20 seconds
• Damage do...

The skies of the capital cities will be set ablaze for one night only in celebration of the New Year. Beginning at 6:00 p.m. realm time tonight (December 31) and every hour on the hour, you can watch fireworks light the skies above your favorite city. It’s a celebration you won’t want to miss.

Looking for a little PvP? You might want to check out what’s shaking in Booty Bay. There’s more than Fireworks going on—the guards don’t seem to be enforcing the town rules and won’t be until a new day dawns. 

Diablo’s anniversary is right around the corner, along with the Darkening of Tristram event! Whether you’re a series veteran craving nostalgia, or a newcomer hungry for your first taste of the franchise’s past, this annual loving homage to the earliest days of Diablo is for you.

Read on for more, including a closer look at the anniversary dungeon and its unique rewards.

Stop the Cultists

Your journey begins on the trail of a group of mysterious cultists causing trouble in Sanctuary. As you hunt them down in Adventure Mode, you’ll uncover clues leading to a po...

'Tis the season to grab your Greatfather Winter gifts from under the trees in Ironforge or Orgimmar. Don't miss getting yours before the Greench gift-naps them on January 1.

Happy holidays!

It's been an inspiring month for the World of Warcraft team, as we've watched the world soar over the Dragon Isles, defend their Renowned allies from the Primalist threat, stay awhile and listen to tales of regret, craft inspired items, delve into dungeons, and make vast, vast quantities of soup.

But this tale is just beginning. A WoW expansion is not a single moment in time but a journey —we know that the merit of an expansion hinges on the sustained quality of its entire arc. Years after its release, Legion is remembered fondly as much for the 11-week content update cadence that served as the framework for its first year as it is for artifact weapons or Khadgar's brilliant dad jokes.

In planning out the road ahead following the release of Dragonflight, we've been mindful of the duty we owe our players to nurture this living world and, frankly, the need to do better than we have at times in the recent past. Our goal for Dragonflight...

Whether you’re shopping for a holiday gift for yourself or your friends, we’ve got what you want!

We’ve loaded up Greatfather Winter’s sleigh with a bounty of delightful deals. Give more with the gift of  Dragonflight with a bonus 30 Days of Game Time, embrace the chill of winter with a cool discount on the Heroic Northrend Upgrade and Epic Northrend Upgrade for Wrath of the Lich King Classic™, become a whole new you with discounts on select game services, and stock up on a variety of pets, mounts, and more!

Get Toasty and Save Up to 60%

The heroes of Overwatch are dashing through the snow in this year’s Winter Wonderland! This event features a special delivery of new arcade modes, cosmetics, free rewards, and plenty of good times to be had with teammates and friends!

We’re also cooking up a sweet holiday treat just for you! Starting now through January 2, you can buy the all-new Gingerbread Legendary Bastion skin for a single Overwatch Coin.

Even if you are brand new to Overwatch 2 and don’t have any Overwatch Coins yet, we have you covered. Completing weekly challenges in the game will award Overwatch Coins for free, and thanks to our friends at Microsoft, you can now ...

Hello, heroes! 

In the first part of our two-part deep dive on matchmaking and competitive we’ll look at how matchmaking works under the hood and answer some outstanding questions around how MMR is determined and factored into the system.

Ultimately, the goal of matchmaker is to create as fair matches as possible across all game modes. We know matchmaking can be a source of frustration, especially in competitive, and we’d like to recognize it doesn’t always feel like it’s meeting its goal. 

In order to address your thoughts, we need to dissect the matchmaker and competitive systems separately before going into how they affect one another. In part 1, we talk about how the matchmaker works, some of the challenges we’ve faced, and some of the ways we’ve started to tackle those issues. 

Internal matchmaking rating (MMR)

Our matchmaker is designed to create balanced matches. To do that, we need some approximation of each player’s skill...

New land, new adventures, and new treasures await to be discovered in the Dragon Isles, along with a variety of mounts, pets, and toys to add to your collection.

Currencies/Resources:

The various factions in the Dragon Isles accept many different items in exchange for their goods, but here are some of the main currencies you'll want to have on hand.

• Gold
• Polished Pet Charm
• Dragon Isles Supplies: Various resources and building materials that can assist the friendly factions of the Dragon Isles in their fight against the Primalists. Used to purchase items unlocked from renown.
• Magmote: A tiny piece of magmatic fire energy, used as a currency by the Worldbreakers.
• Elemental Overflow: The essence of fallen foes imbued with the power of a primal storm.
   

• ...

The Arena World Championship and Mythic Dungeon International return in 2023 to dive into all that Dragonflight has to offer.

With more than $1.6 million (USD) of prizing on the line, 2023 is bound to be another great year for the Arena World Championship (AWC) and Mythic Dungeon International (MDI). In addition to the quest for immortality and taking home a share of the prize pools, all players across both programs will be able to earn the new in-game Thundering Banner of the Aspects. Registration is now open for the first events, which will all be broadcast live on Twitch and ...

Patch 25.0.4 is a data-only patch, launching today, that includes balance changes to Standard, Wild, Battlegrounds, and Arena, as well as bug fixes and more!

Hearthstone Changes

Dev Comment: Balance changes at this point in an expansion are made with early, somewhat limited data. For these changes, we like to address the most egregious power outliers and play patterns that we know we don’t like—cards that we’re likely to adjust down the line anyway as the meta evolves over time. We hope and expect to make some spicier changes in our next balance pass, once we have more data.

The following cards are being adjusted to be less powerful:

Unleash Fel

• Old: Manathirst (4)
• New: Manathirst (6)

Relic of Dimensions

...

Attention, world—after three years away, we’re thrilled to announce that the Overwatch World Cup is returning for 2023, and the competition will be bigger than ever: new game, new players, and new ways of spotlighting your country and region on a global scale. 

We’ll reveal additional program details as they’re ready, but here’s the big picture for the 2023 Overwatch World Cup…

TIMELINE OVERVIEW

In January, we’ll announce the 36 countries and regions competing in the 2023 Overwatch World Cup, and that’s also when competition committee applications will open. Each competition committee will be responsible for organizing tryouts for their country and region, following Blizzard guidelines.

Alongside regular tryouts, we’re introducing a new avenue for players to compete for a spot on their team. This comes in the form of an open tournament format: World Cup Trials. In February, the World Cup Trials competition will earn winning players a dire...

For a limited time*, players who do not own Dragonflight but have a subscription or active Game Time can play the new expansion as the dracthyr Evoker beginning today. Experience the Forbidden Reach starting zon...

It's a holiday rumble in the Overwatch community! AverageJonas, LuluLuvely, will be joined by creators to compete in a community tournament on Tuesday, December 20. The tournament will have two groups of 4 teams compete in a round-robin to find the first two teams to get to two wins, and will then be followed by the top four teams competing in a single-elimination bracket with a $25,000 prize pool on the line!

Team Captains

• AverageJonas
• LuluLuvely
• ...

We wish you one Hell of a holiday season!

Winter has befallen Sanctuary—and with it, a fresh layer of demonic trickery has coated the land. During this time of year, mortals exchange gifts to spread holiday cheer, but the Burning Hell’s helpers have thwarted this celebration by stealing all the gifts for their own nefarious purposes.

Restoring this time of glee rests squarely on your shoulders, Nephalem. Can you save this Hellish Holiday?

Slay Hell’s Helpers to Recover Gifts

From December 16, 11:00 a.m.–February 5, 11:00 a.m. PST, you’ll need to put the ...

Citizens of Azeroth,

It is with great joy that I announce Chris Metzen has joined the Warcraft Leadership Team as Creative Advisor. Chris’s focus initially will be on World of Warcraft, then his work will expand to other projects across this growing franchise.

Chris was one of the original team members working on the Warcraft universe back when it began in 1994, and we are so happy to be reuniting him with the world he helped create.

John Hight
General Manager, Warcraft