Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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Part two of the news:

Dota 2 is moving away from the battle pass model as Valve says there are better uses of dev time and most players 'never buy' one anyway
https://www.pcgamer.com/dota-2-is-moving-away-from-the-battle-pass-model-as-valve-says-there-are-better-uses-of-dev-time-and-most-players-never-buy-one-anyway/
Valve is celebrating Dota 2's tenth anniversary with a major break with tradition. Although the game has received a battle pass (originally called a Compendium) to accompany and fund the prize pool for every year's International tournament, Valve has decided there won't be one this year. In fact, it's dramatically ratcheting down how much it focuses on battle pass content in general, and pledges instead to focus on other, more regular updates that can be experienced by the entire Dota 2 playerbase.

Blizzard is killing Hearthstone Classic and replacing it with a new mode called Twist
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-is-killing-hearthstone-classic-and-replacing-it-with-a-new-mode-called-twist/
Hearthstone's history of adding new modes is a mixed one. Battlegrounds has been so successful that it's arguably supplanted the main Standard mode, but Mercenaries was a shuttle crash from start to finish. Classic, which as the name suggests gave players the chance to time warp back to the vanilla version of Hearthstone, was fun at first but with Blizzard opting not to add any expansions, interest dropped off fast. So I wasn't shocked to learn last week, on a call with modes design lead Matt London and features lead Chadd Nervig, that Classic is getting the chop. It will be replaced by a new mode, called Twist, which also looks to leverage old cards in players' collections.

Blizzard may remove upcoming WoW quest where players fix the timeline by ensuring a character is sexually assaulted
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-may-remove-upcoming-wow-quest-where-players-fix-the-timeline-by-ensuring-a-character-is-sexually-assaulted/
An upcoming quest in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight's patch 10.1.5, which was playable on the MMO's PTR server, has been heavily criticized by fans for its glib attitude toward a controversial part of the MMO's story.

You have to start a fresh Diablo 4 character for each battle pass
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-new-characters-battle-pass/
Blizzard's explanation of Diablo 4's seasons and their battle passes didn't mention that you have to start a new character to participate in each one, and news of the requirement is bewildering a lot of players just weeks before the start of Season 1.
>> In other news, there's been a breakthrough about the secret cow level.

The Sims 4 is finally getting the horse expansion players have been demanding for years
https://www.pcgamer.com/sims-4-horse-expansion-teaser/
Listings for a "Sims 4 Horse Ranch" expansion appeared on key reseller sites earlier this month, but it was hard to take the supposed leaks very seriously, especially since they borrowed an image of a guy riding a horse from The Sims 3 Pets. Today, however, a much more convincing leak started circulating, and EA finally confirmed that horses are coming to The Sims, albeit without saying so directly.

EA's Heretic-like magic FPS Immortals of Aveum is delayed
https://www.pcgamer.com/eas-heretic-like-magic-fps-immortals-of-aveum-is-delayed/
Immortals of Aveum is part of a vanishingly niche tradition: a linear first-person shooter issued by a major publisher, in this case, EA. The twist is that instead of rifles it has magic, so those of us begging for a Heretic revival may find comfort in Immortals of Aveum's war wizard theme. We'll need to wait a bit longer than originally planned though, because the release date of July 20 has been pushed back—just a touch—to August 22.

EA King Solomons itself and, weirdly for a games publisher, EA Games no longer exists
https://www.pcgamer.com/ea-king-solomons-itself-and-weirdly-for-a-games-publisher-ea-games-no-longer-exists/
Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. EA is splitting up with itself in a big internal shakeup that will see EA Games and EA Sports cut into two distinct units within the company. EA Games is also getting a rebrand: It's going to be called EA Entertainment from now on, suggesting that the company has plans to expand beyond gaming in some capacity. Who's up for a Syndicate film?