BlizzCon2016
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Blizzard is building 'Diablo' inside 'Diablo 3'
The big news for the saviors of Sanctuary has been announced at BlizzCon 2016: Diablo is coming back! The original game, that is. For its 20th anniversary, Blizzard is re-releasing the original dungeon delver that started its massively successful franchise, recreated within the engine of the latest in the series, Diablo 3. And you can play it next week on the game's test realm.
'Hearthstone' is going to Gadgetzan
The next expansion for Blizzard's wildly popular digital card game goes out into the desert. But it'll be a bit different than when you checked out out in World of Warcraft. "Mean Streets of Gadgetzan" is a bigger, more populated city now, but executive producer Hamilton Chu said that it has some seedy back alleys and underworld elements to it.
Google DeepMind and Blizzard partner for 'StarCraft II' AI research
Google's Deepmind AI has already learned how to best humans at Go, but now Deepmind's resources will be pointed at an entirely different game: Starcraft II. Blizzard just announced at Blizzcon that it is partnering with Google to open up Starcraft II as a research platform for those building AI programmers. "Blizzard will release an API early next year that will allow researchers and hobbyists around the world to build and train their own AI agents to play Starcraft II," said Oriol Vinyals, a research scientist at Google DeepMind.
Sombra is officially Overwatch's new hacker hero
If you didn't see Sombra coming, maybe you haven't been paying much attention to Overwatch lately. Onstage during the Blizzcon keynote, Blizzard president and CEO Mike Morhaime described her as a stealthy offensive infiltrator who can hack an enemy's abilities. Blizzard has dropped a few other details as well. She has an EMP attack that can shut down numerous enemies at once, for instance. Additionally, she can camouflage herself, making her harder to see. If you're lucky enough to be at Blizzcon this weekend she'll be playable on the show floor. Everyone else? You're going to have to wait.
Is this Overwatch's new hacker hero?
Blizzard continued its brutal trolling of Overwatch fans by adding yet another crumb on the trail to unveil Sombra, the next character to be added to its roster of playable heroes. The latest in their months-long series of alternate reality games (ARG) came when she "hacked" the game's subreddit today, and its moderators asked users to help protect a website in the Overwatch universe from her attacks. If you've not scoffed at yet another stalling tactic to buy time until Sombra's likely reveal at BlizzCon this weekend, there might be an unintentional reveal to get excited about: potential concept art of the never-before-seen hero was accidentally listed on Blizzard's store page.
