The latest stories from the gaming world
Game Freak has revealed Ame no Chi Hare Onna, a free-to-play mobile game built around real-world weather data across Japan, with Pokemon series director Shigeru Ohmori as director and producer. It launches this winter on iOS and Android.
Hearthstone is getting its first new class since Demon Hunter in 2020: Monk, led by Chen Stormstout, arrives March 2027 alongside a core set refresh and rotation. Before that, the Reign of the Black Empire expansion lands 20 October with the Assemble keyword across roughly 250 cards, and Battlegrounds gets the Aberration minion type on 22 September.
Blizzard announced World of Warcraft: Forever at BlizzCon 2026 - a re-imagined vanilla Azeroth with over 1,000 new quests, nine dungeons, two raids, three new zones including a playable Mount Hyjal, and a brand-new Skyborne race. It launches 4 November 2026, beta opens 17 September, and it is included with a standard subscription. Warcraft III Reforged also got its first new campaign in twenty years.
Blizzard announced a new StarCraft at BlizzCon 2026 - a story-driven open-world shooter targeting 2030, led by former Far Cry lead producer Dan Hay. The reveal was a fully cinematic trailer following a Dominion Marine named Holt from training to a Zergling ambush, with no gameplay, no platforms beyond PC, and no word on the RTS side of the series.
Blizzard announced Diablo V at BlizzCon 2026 for spring 2029, and the premise is that the heroes already lost - Diablo has ruled Sanctuary for seven years and turned Westmarch into an outpost of Hell. Towns are replaced by a travelling caravan, the Plague Knight joins Demon Hunter and Monk, and Diablo II-style Runewords and stat requirements are back. Diablo IV hits Switch 2 on 15 September alongside Season of Hell's Legacy.
Genshin Impact Version 7.1 'A Rekviem for the Underworld' launches 23 September with the Tsaritsa's Gnosis plan finally explained, Ronova added as a Weekly Boss, new 5-stars Vesna and Vodyanitsa, the Moonchase Festival's return to Liyue, and an anniversary payout of two free 5-star characters plus 1,600 Primogems.
Days after a mass Steam achievements leak surfaced the name, Nightdive Studios has officially confirmed The Tarnished Mirror, a new campaign for Thief: The Dark Project Remastered. The full reveal lands 2 November; the teaser opens by admitting the secret is already out.
Naoki Hamaguchi has confirmed that Kingdom Hearts IV is being made inside Creative Studio 1, the same Square Enix studio he runs and that is building Final Fantasy VII Revelation. Tetsuya Nomura still directs KH4 - but both of the company's 2027 tentpoles now ship out of one org.
Bulkhead's 100-player three-team shooter Wardogs has passed one million copies sold and 350,000 concurrent players within hours of its Steam early access launch, after a marketing run that included a trailer called '10 Reasons NOT to Buy' and refund offers to unhappy beta testers. PS5 and Xbox versions are not due until 2028.
Seattle studio Polyarc, the team behind the Moss series and its flat-screen reissue Moss: The Forgotten Relic, announced its closure on September 11, 2026. Twenty-nine staff are affected, including all three Bungie-veteran co-founders, just eight weeks after the studio's final game shipped.
Remedy has detailed Control Resonant's Assist Mode ahead of the September 24, 2026 launch: eleven individually tunable combat variables, toggleable mid-game, with presets - and unlike the original Control, every slider can be pushed to make the game harder as well as easier.
Type-Moon, French-Bread and Aniplex have dated Melty Blood: Twi-Lumina for April 22, 2027 across PS5, PS4, Switch 2, Switch, Xbox One and Steam. The release-date trailer confirms White Len, a new Gauntlet mechanic, a Kinoko Nasu story mode, and a beginner-friendly one-button Act control scheme.