Watching Blizzard: It's all about the patches

World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and even Diablo — for just about every game, there’s an upcoming patch or update that’s going to shake things up (or at least add some new treats for us to play with). That’s kind of a lot to happen in one week, so let’s run the big news of the last week.

Tides of Vengeance is coming to World of Warcraft

• Though we don’t have a release date yet, patch 8.1 went live on the PTR this Friday, and it’s packed with new features.
• Look for a new Darkshore Warfront and not one but two new raids. Excite!!
• The datamining has, of course, begun, and so far the most interesting part has been an updated Tyrande model and an unlockable Night Elf customization to match.

The week in lore, because there’s always a week in lore

• Anne talks about Kul Tiras’ history as of the seven human kingdoms — and its future in the Alliance.
• And this week Rossi is talking about G’huun, the final boss of Uldir. It’s a story you probably haven’t heard a hint of if you haven’t leveled a Horde character.
• And in a surprise addition to the week’s lore lineup, Deb has a piece on Wrathion’s past and potential future.

And that’s not the end of the week’s WoW news

• Sure, patch news will always dominate, but it’s not the be-all, end-all of Warcraft… even if sometimes it seems that way.
• Should you be helping all of those turtles to water? Marine biologist Greg Street — whom you may know as Ghostcrawler — has the facts for us.
• The creator of Deadly Boss Mods, an almost must-have addon for raiding, was ready to retire this week, but the community came through to support him.
• Opinion time! My Battle for Azeroth may not be your Battle for Azeroth.
• You can get your own pirate ship mount, and all you have to do is buy the six months of WoW gametime that you would probably buy anyway.

I can’t explain what Anne is up to

• She’s on a gallery streak lately and… well, honestly, I can’t explain it. But they’re pretty neato, and if you missed them you should probably take a chance to browse.
• Did you know there’s a collection of underwater hangouts in Kul Tiras and Zandalar? This week Anne explored to find every underwater hideout in Zandalar. (And she’d already done the same for Kul Tiras.) So dive into the water and enjoy your swim-cation, everyone.
•  Then there’s this gallery, which Anne helpfully titled, “How to steal candy from children and buy a dead cat.” I’m not even going to try to explain that.

It will soon be Halloween in Heroes of the Storm

• Okay, they don’t call it Halloween but it’s totally Halloween. In Blizzard’s continuing attempts to give Heroes of the Storm a coherent plot, the Raven Lord is assaulting King’s Crest. The patch is live on the PTR now and will probably be on the live realms next week.
• More interesting than the cobbled together story are the new skins, including a witch Whitemane, complete with broom.

Diablo news? Diablo news!!

• Well, some news, anyway. Season 15 kicked off giving you an all-new reason to grind the same old content.
• But more exciting is the news that a Diablo series may be coming to Netflix. Here’s to hoping this pans out. (Six seasons and a movie?)

A “classic” Hearthstone card no longer means a card that was in the game at launch

• That’s because a future patch will bring several new cards to the classic set in order to keep things balanced as Blizzard keeps retiring classic cards.
• Also: tournament mode is dead. Sigh.

Under-played Overwatch hero Torbjorn is getting a rework

• Now he can shoot lava and throw his turrets around and it sounds magnificent. See Jeff talk about the rework in the latest dev update and Geoff run down Torb’s new skill lineup.
• The patch is on the PTR now, but we don’t yet know when it will go live.

That’s a pile of news for this week, leaving me to wonder what’s in store for next week — not to mention BlizzCon, which isn’t that far away. But until next week, this is Liz, signing out.