Quick Hits

• BlizzCon 2026 delivered a monster opening ceremony: Blizzard revealed Diablo 5 with a teaser trailer for Spring 2029 ("Sanctuary falls"), confirmed Diablo 4: Age of Hatred Collection launches on Switch 2 next week, announced a Diablo animated Netflix series, and capped it all with World of Warcraft Forever.
• Pokémon Go and EA FC "under one roof"? Eurogamer and GameSpot report Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund — which acquired EA in a $55bn leveraged buyout earlier this year — is now considering merging EA with its Savvy Games Group under one banner.
• Wardogs is an absolute rocket: Bulkhead's tactical shooter sold over a million copies and topped 350,000 concurrent players within hours of its September 10 Steam early access launch.
• GameSpot digs into why Fortnite's player numbers are falling so hard this season — essential reading amid the usual doom-spiraling.
• Demo alert: Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World has a demo live on the eShop now, letting you carry up to 8 monsters into the full game.

Pokémon & Nintendo

The biggest Switch 2 news of the weekend came from BlizzCon: Diablo 4: Age of Hatred Collection is officially bringing Hell to Switch 2 next week, after months of rumors, ratings leaks, and even early store sightings. Blizzard then closed its Diablo 30th anniversary segment with the first teaser for Diablo 5 — Spring 2029, and "Sanctuary falls." A Diablo animated Netflix series is also in development. That's one hell of a weekend for Blizzard fans with a Switch 2.

Meanwhile, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World is shaping up beautifully — IGN's preview raves about the instantly appealing Toriyama art style and a "staggering" 500 collectible monsters that are all "super weird." The demo is out now on the eShop, so you can sample the weirdness yourself. And don't sleep on Kotaku's pick for the most overlooked reveal from this week's Nintendo Direct: the Torneko Mystery Dungeon classic HD rerelease, the game that pioneered the roguelike sub-genre and led directly to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, finally available in English for the first time.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave's estimated file size has also been revealed ahead of its Switch 2-exclusive launch — digital buyers, plan accordingly. And the Pokémon community is doing what it does best: a Tokyo Station Pokémon Store walkthrough showcases the elite Stationmaster Pikachu, while one nurse discovered her clinic's Pyxis door squeaks exactly like a crying Clefable, and another fan transformed an old scrap watch into a genuinely cool Zapdos timepiece.

Fortnite

GameSpot tackles the question on everyone's charts: why are Fortnite's player numbers falling so hard this season? It's a nuanced look — ever since Fortnite started publicly posting player numbers in 2023, doomsayers have pounced on every dip in concurrent or average players, and the piece examines whether this season's decline fits the pattern or signals something more. Worth a read before you panic.

Indie Games

Wardogs is the story of the week. Eurogamer reports the Derby-based studio Bulkhead's tactical shooter sold more than a million copies and passed 350,000 concurrent players within hours of hitting Steam early access on September 10. Launch week isn't without hiccups — GameSpot has tips for a bug that unbinds your parachute controls (and yes, you need to actually own a parachute first) — plus a guide to all the active Twitch Drops rewards. And if you need something to play between Wardogs matches, PC Gamer is obsessing over Shroom and Gloom, a horror-tinged deckbuilder with fantastic fights, gorgeous artwork, and tasty mushrooms.

Steam & PC

Borderlands 4 is enjoying a genuine resurgence on Steam thanks to a free-to-play weekend and its new DLC Vault Hunter, Loveless the Hacker — a welcome turnaround for a game IGN notes struggled after launch. In remaster news, Nightdive has officially confirmed The Tarnished Mirror, a new campaign for Thief: The Dark Project Remastered, after the name leaked via a mass Steam achievements dump — full reveal coming in November. And in the "what?!" file: Kotaku spotted that Danganronpa 2×2, a remake of a PSP visual novel, has utterly ridiculous recommended PC specs on Steam. It's a text game, folks.

Gaming Roundup

The mic drop of BlizzCon 2026: World of Warcraft Forever, a "Classic Plus" MMO from the WoW Classic team, announced at the close of the opening ceremony (IGN has details on its setting). With Grand Theft Auto 6 just over two months away, GameSpot gives you permission to take vacation time for launch — fans have been doing it for decades. Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director news from Eurogamer: physical copies will require a download anyway, because fitting the mammoth finale fully on disc would have compromised "the quality of the final chapter." And finally, Zach Cregger had to dial back the humor in his upcoming Resident Evil film because test screeners thought it was "too funny" — the best possible problem a horror director could have.