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The entirety of Blizzard’s 500-strong World of Warcraft development team have unionised, making it the largest group within Microsoft’s gaming teams to do so thus far.

Around 1750 employees within Microsoft’s gaming teams are now unionised, Bloomberg reported yesterday, including those working on Blizzard’s veteran MMO.

World of Warcraft developers will now be represented by the Communication Workers of America (CWA), which celebrated the inclusion of Blizzard staff yesterday in a statement which dubbed the joining as the “first wall-to-wall union at Activision Blizzard”, and “a key inflection point in the broader movement for video game worker organising industry-wide”.

Blizzard unionisation leaders have said they want to improve standards of pay, as well …

Stardew Valley creator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone has said he’ll “never” charge money for a DLC or update “for as long as I live”.

Earlier today, the developer posted on social media site X to say console and mobile ports of the Stardew Valley 1.6 update are “still in progress”, following the PC release back in March.

“The ports and next PC update are still in progress,” said Barone. “I know it is taking a long time, it’s on my mind every minute. I have personally been working on the mobile port every day. I will announce when there is any meaningful news (eg. a release date). Hope you’re having a good summer.”

Newscast: Does the loss of day one launches make Xbox Game Pass pointless?

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As Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred expansion inches ever-closer, Blizzard has shared first gameplay and details for its new Spiritborn class during a lengthy deep-dive livestream.

In lore terms, the Spiritborn comes from the jungles of Sanctuary’s Nahantu and is described as “an apex predator with a deep connection to the spirit realm”. From a gameplay perspective, though, the Spiritborn is a dexterity focused class built around a spirit-infused martial arts move set – combining aspects of Muay Thai, taekwondo, karate, kickboxing, and boxing – that promises to make for Diablo 4’s “fastest, most aggressive” class yet.

It has multiple gap-closers built into its basic attacks, several movement skills with “very high damage”, plus various ways to upgrade its evades -…

Nexon’s all-new free-to-play sci-fi shooter The First Descendant has clocked up 10m players in seven days.
Marking the occasion, Nexon says the milestone “means everything to us”, and thanked players for their “tremendous support and love”.

Newscast: Does the loss of day one launches make Xbox Game Pass pointless?

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A new VR multiplayer game has been announced by nDreams, the developer of Synapse, coming to PSVR 2 and Meta Quest.

Frenzies is an arena multiplayer shooter with gameplay similar to Synapse, split into unpredictable five-round matches with names like Red Light, Green Light and Glitter Pig – it’s unclear exactly what that one’s about.

Round types are both solo and team-based for an unpredictable experience (as the name suggests), all while wearing Squid Game-esque onesies with customisable masks.

FRENZIES ANNOUNCE TRAILER | nDREAMS | META QUEST & PS VR2

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Tasking us all with bringing some order back to the universe, Nintendo has announced its next Switch Online trial for members.
From today (8th July) until 14th July, those interested can take Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope out for a spin as part of their subscription. The full game is available during this time.

Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope – Nintendo Switch – DF Tech Review – A Worthy Sequel?

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Sony Interactive Entertainment will exhibit at Tokyo Games Show this year.
The PlayStation maker’s presence at the convention was confirmed along with the launch of the Tokyo Game Show 2024 visitor’s site yesterday (4th July). Sony hasn’t had a major presence at the Tokyo Game Show since 2019.
As of yesterday, 731 exhibitors have been confirmed to be participating in Tokyo Game Show 2024, with the likes of Sega, Square Enix, Bandai Namco and Nintendo all in attendance.

Astro Bot – Announcement Trailer | PS5 Games

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Brighter Shores, the upcoming MMO from Fen Research, is having its early access launch on Steam pushed back by a single day to Wednesday 6th November. Why? Well there’s that whole US election happening on Tuesday 5th November, so Andrew Gower, one of the founders of Fen Research announced the one-day push back on his X (formally Twitter) account yesterday.
We have decided to push the launch of Brighter Shores back to the 6th Nov, because apparently there is some sort of election thingy on the 5th – who knew?!— Andrew Gower (@AndrewCGower) October 9, 2024…

We all knew it was coming, but yesterday, after multiple leaks, Rockstar finally announced Red Dead Redemption will soon launch on PC.
As Ed reported, the upcoming release will also include Red Dead Redemption’s standalone zombie expansion – Undead Nightmare – on its PC debut.
And now, we also know those all important PC requirements for Rockstar’s cowboy epic, so if you are getting ready to saddle up and ride off with John Martson and co, you can double check you’ve got the kit you need.

Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare Coming to PC October 29

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