Author: Trafficblast

At BlizzCon this weekend, Blizzard announced Overwatch‘s next hero, Ashe, and teased another one, Echo, to come sometime later. Now, game director Jeff Kaplan has now shared further specifics about how many new characters are coming, stating in a new interview that Blizzard has six new heroes planned. Ashe and Echo are apparently counted in this figure, and that’s a lot of new ones. t’ll take “years” before they’re all released, the game director said.

“We have our next six heroes planned out right now which, for us, is years,” Kaplan told Eurogamer. “[Echo], tentatively, is one of those heroes.”

Overwatch’s 29th hero, Ashe

Overwatch launched with 21 heroes. Ashe, a gunslinger damage character, is the 29th. Echo could follow Ashe, but Kaplan said nothing is decided regarding the timeline at this stage. You can watch the Ashe announcement trailer in the video embedded above.

Overwatch remains popular, and one of the ways Blizzard gets new players is with the shooter’s free weekends. The game could theoretically draw in even more new players if the game becomes a free-to-play title, but would Blizzard ever do that? Kaplan said the game was not designed to be free-to-play (it’s been a paid title since launch), but he pointed out that the free-to-play model “should always be a consideration.”

That being said, Kaplan stressed, “We haven’t given serious thought to putting Overwatch free-to-play at this time.”

Back in May, Blizzard announced that Overwatch had reached 40 million players, so it is clearly a massive success. Regarding its commercial fortunes, one of the ways the game makes money beyond the initial sticker price is through the microtransaction-fueled loot box system. Loot boxes are controversial, and in Belgium, Blizzard removed them to comply with the country’s rules. Still, Kaplan said Blizzard believes in loot boxes as a business system.

“We’re sticking with loot boxes. Obviously we don’t agree with the decision in Belgium but we’re also respectful of the country’s laws and we want to adhere to those,” Kaplan said.

Overwatch’s loot box system is “player-friendly,” Kaplan said. You can only spend money on loot boxes that contain cosmetic items; they never feature items that actually impact gameplay. The money that Blizzard makes from loot boxes helps the studio fund development of things like new heroes and other parts of the live service.

Epic’s battle royale game Fortnite found a lot of success with its Battle Pass system–which other big-name games are now adopting–but Overwatch is sticking with loot boxes over a battle pass.

“It would be a tremendous amount of work to switch Overwatch from loot boxes to Battle Pass, or even to just add a Battle Pass,” Kaplan said. “The Battle Pass is really elegantly done in Fortnite and they should be commended for the job they did on it, but it’s no trivial amount of work. Even if we thought it was the best idea and wanted to do it tomorrow, it’s very unlikely at this time. But it’s a brilliant game design, separate from all business considerations.”

Be sure to read the full Eurogamer interview, as it touches on a number of other big topics like the possibility of a Nintendo Switch version, cross-play between competing systems, and more.

In other BlizzCon news, Blizzard announced a new Diablo game for mobile devices, and some people are not happy about it.

It’s the end of the road for Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead… right? Andrew Lincoln’s final episode of the AMC series has come and gone. After that conclusion, though, you might be wondering just how final Rick’s fate is.

Throughout the episode, it was clear that the former sheriff was at death’s door. After falling onto some rebar, which ripped through him, he spends the majority of his last hour on the show bleeding out and trying to escape a herd of zombies, while having hallucinations of those he’s lost in the past, including very short returns of Shane (Jon Bernthal), Hershel (Scott Wilson), and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green). That is until he blows up a bridge he and the walkers are on, sending them into a raging river below.

As Daryl (Norman Reedus) and the rest of our heroes looked on, distraught, it seemed as though Rick had really gone out with a bang. The episode didn’t end there, though.

Instead, the show went back to Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh), the former Jadis. After seeing the plume of smoke from the explosion in the distance and heard commotion over the radio, she spots Rick’s body washed up on the side of the river as that mysterious helicopter reappeared. “I have a B,” she says into her radio. “Not an A, I never had an A. He’s hurt, but he’s strong. Can you help him?” From there, we quickly shift to the chopper taking off, with Anne and Rick safe and sound as “Spacejunk” by Wang Chung plays–no, seriously.

“You’re still here,” she tells Rick on the helicopter. “You’re going to be okay. They’re going to save you.”

Who is they? That’s the big question we’re left with or at least one of them. The answer is most likely the Whisperers. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard the terms “A” and “B” thrown around. While we can’t be sure, this is most likely a reference to alphas and betas. As fans of the comics know, the Whisperers are led by a woman named Alpha, with her second-in-command named Beta.

While they have yet to arrive on the series, we know they are coming and are going to be a major antagonist later in the season. That doesn’t necessarily bode well for Rick, though.

Still, this is Lincoln’s final episode, and it ends with him alive, which could lead to two outcomes. Either this is how the series is leaving the door open for his possible return one day or the Whisperers are going to make an even more fierce introduction.

For those that don’t follow the comics, the Whisperers travel through herds of walkers by wearing the skin of the dead over their own. It’s disgusting and actually makes perfect sense in this disturbing world. If the show was looking for a way to really make an impact when they finally show their faces, wearing the skin of Rick Grimes would certainly create a lasting and haunting image. For now, though, this is the last we’ll see of Rick Grimes–until he potentially comes back.

That wasn’t the only thing that left jaws on the floor at the end of this episode, though. There was also a flash forward to an older Judith Grimes. While she’s still young–clearly no older than 10–this Judith was walking, talking, and killing zombies. It would make her dad proud, but he’s definitely probably dead.

When a group of people are saved from a small herd, they find this little girl with a sheriff’s hat and a katana strapped to her back is their savior. While this short moment does give hope for the future of the Grimes name, it raises a lot of questions. How did this little girl end up on her own and, more importantly, where’s Michonne? With her surrogate mother’s weapon over her shoulder, it definitely leaves you wondering if she, too, has become just another victim of this horrible world.

As much as this was theoretically the end of a major chapter in The Walking Dead, the story of Rick Grimes, it certainly feels like a new beginning. It will be interesting to see where the show goes from here.

Earlier this year, the incorrect Battlefield V system requirements emerged online, but now developer DICE has shared the final, official system requirements for the WW2 shooter. Posted on Reddit, the system requirements cover Minimum and Recommended, as well as DirectX ray tracing (DXR), which requires extra RAM and and RTX card.

Battlefield V was supposed to launch on October 19, but EA and developer DICE announced a delay that pushed the release date to November 15. The delay came down to DICE wanting to have more time to fine-tune the game and make it as good as possible for release.

The game will launch with single-player War Stories and the fan-favourite multiplayer, but the new battle royale mode, Firestorm, isn’t going to launch until March 2019. The single-player campaign chapter where you play as a German soldier, The Last Tiger, won’t be available at release either; instead it comes out sometime in December.

Battlefield V System Requirements

Recommended

• OS: 64-bit Windows 10 or later
• Processor (AMD): AMD Ryzen 3 1300X
• Processor (Intel): Intel Core i7 4790 or equivalent
• Memory: 12GB RAM
• Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
• Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB
• DirectX: 11.1 Compatible video card or equivalent
• Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection
• Available Disk Space: 50GB

Recommended For DXR

• OS: 64-bit Windows 10 October 2018 Update (1809)
• Processor (AMD): AMD Ryzen 7 2700
• Processor (Intel): Intel Core i7 8700
• Memory: 16GB RAM
• Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070
• DirectX: DirectX Raytracing Compatible video card
• Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection
• Available Disk Space: 50GB

Minimum

• OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
• Processor (AMD): AMD FX-8350
• Processor (Intel): Core i5 6600K
• Memory: 8GB RAM
• Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB
• Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon RX 560 / HD 7850 2GB
• DirectX: 11.0 Compatible video card or equivalent
• Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection
• Hard-drive space: 50GB

At BlizzCon this past weekend, Blizzard announced a brand-new Diablo game–but it wasn’t exactly what fans were expecting or hoping for.

Diablo Immortal is a new Diablo game for mobile devices that Blizzard is developing alongside partner NetEase. Even though Blizzard told fans weeks ahead of BlizzCon that they shouldn’t expect an announcement of the next mainline Diablo game at the show, a reveal of a new mobile game wasn’t the kind of surprise some were hoping for. The next big Diablo game–potentially Diablo 4–is likely in the works, but Blizzard said nothing about it at BlizzCon.

We caught up with Blizzard’s Wyatt Cheng (principal game designer) and Joe Hsu (senior game producer) at BlizzCon to talk about the announcement of Diablo Immortal, the reaction to it, and more.

Cheng started off by explaining that Diablo Immortal is coming to mobile because the franchise is already well represented on console and PC; the next area of expansion is the growing mobile market, he said.

“At the end of the day, at Blizzard, we’re gamers,” Cheng said. “And we play a ton of games on all platforms, console, PC. We play board games. We play card games. We just play games, and a lot of us play mobile games. And I think when we look at an opportunity to make an awesome mobile game, we want to take it.”

Blizzard has been working with NetEase for nearly a decade on bringing popular franchises like World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, and another mobile title, Hearthstone, to the Chinese gaming market. Partnering with NetEase again for Diablo Immortal just made sense, Cheng said.

Another reason Blizzard is bringing Diablo to mobile is because there are more stories in the universe to tell. “We were looking at this 20 year period in between Diablo II, Lord of Destruction, and Diablo III, and we said, ‘All these events happened, so we should take a look at creating a game that explores that space in time,'” Cheng explained.

He added that Diablo Immortal is sort of like the movie Star Wars: Rogue One, which exists in the wider Star Wars universe but can still be watched and enjoyed on its own.

As for Hsu, he said bringing Diablo to mobile is representative of Blizzard’s efforts to “try new things” and bring Diablo to more people.

“We love to bring new things to our players,” Hsu said. “For me personally, I still play Diablo III. I play the Seasons, and that is awesome experience, but I would love to try new things, and we would love to share that with everyone. And it’s such a rich IP where we can do that, so it was a good choice. I feel like it was a very good choice.”

Some amount of the conversation around Diablo Immortal has been negative. As mentioned, a portion of the fanbase was hoping to see the next big Diablo title instead of a mobile game. Hsu said he hopes people give Diablo Immortal a shot first before judging it.

“We really believe playing is believing, and we would love it if everyone everywhere gets to try it out and give their honest opinions,” he said. “That would be amazing.”

Being skeptical is perfectly fair and reasonable, Cheng said, but he still hopes people stay open-minded about Diablo Immortal.

“I think that’s reasonable in today’s world, our modern world, to be a little skeptical,” he said. “But then for the people who play it, if they can go out and say, ‘No, no, no, seriously, guys. I was at BlizzCon. I played the demo. It was awesome.’ Hopefully that word of mouth spreads.”

Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham told Kotaku that the company expected fans to get upset about Diablo Immortal, but not on the level that eventually came to bear. There was also backlash when Blizzard announced Diablo for consoles and fans also got upset about Hearthstone in general being a free-to-play mobile game, Adham said, so pushback is nothing new for the company. All of that said, Adham added that he understands Diablo fans want more.

“We knew our audience here desperately wants to see and hear about one thing in particular,” Adham said, presumably in reference to the next big Diablo game.

You can expect Blizzard to spend a lot of time and attention on Diablo Immortal. Cheng said Diablo for mobile will be the next big core pillar for the Diablo franchise going forward.

“Yeah, I do. I do for sure,” he said. “If we fast forward in 10, 20 years and look back, we’re going to be developing up the lore. And when people paint out the storyline, we have new stories to tell. We have new gameplay. There’s going to be brand new experiences for players in Diablo world.”

Blizzard has yet to disclose the business model for Diablo Immortal, so as of yet it’s unknown if it will be free or paid. Blizzard’s previous mobile game, Hearthstone, is free. It is supported by microtransactions. We asked if Diablo Immortal would have microtransactions, but both Cheng and Hsu said Blizzard is focused more on getting the game right before talking about business specifics.

No doubt another one of the reasons Blizzard is bringing Diablo Immortal to market is because of the business opportunity. Smartphones are ubiquitous, and the microtransaction model–especially in China–is common and generally accepted. Parent company Activision Blizzard made $4 billion from microtransactions last year, and stakeholders are surely eager to see this figure grow higher still.

One other matter surrounding Diablo Immortal is the accusations that it is a re-skin of the game Crusaders of Light, which is another title from NetEase. Asked directly to respond to the re-skinning claims, Cheng told IGN: “We have artists on our side, they have artists on their side, and we work together as a team, as a partnership to create everything about Diablo: Immortal. The environments, the characters, the skills, the story.”

GameSpot spent some hands-on time with Diablo Immortal at BlizzCon, so keep checking back soon for more.