Game showcase summer has begun: these early weeks of June fill the void of E3 with video game announcements, capping off with Summer Game Fest 2026 itself on Friday. But saying this week is all about Summer Game Fest feels inaccurate; while that may be the main event, there are many other showcases happening over...

I wanna try it. I love ramen (ordered some last night, which is what prompted this thought). Pandaren are canonically extremely good at cooking; they even get a racial about it. Their ramen must be divine.

This is The Queue, our daily column full of Qs and As where we wish we could live in Pandaria. Seriously. Grummles and Yaks and Luckydos; great food and elemental spirits. Just ignore the Sha and the Mantid and the Virmen, and it’s a great place.

Because of the Blizzard Watch Site Curse, the day after we recorded the podcast, the release date for patch 12.0.7 was announced, because that’s just how that works. It’s June 16, and you’re welcome. That also comes with changes to gear repair costs, which we talked about a bit last week, but Joe has a...

Summer is approaching, and that means it’s game showcase season as we wind up to Summer Game Fest on June 6. Even after E3 was (permanently) canceled, summer has remained the time to announce new video games — and the summer showcases now spread the first week of June, and seem to start earlier every...

What a time to be a gamer. We live in a golden age of video gaming, in which there is a constant deluge of new, great, innovative titles everywhere — and this week in particular is jam-packed with indie game showcases highlighting the weird and the wonderful (and the weird). Of course we also live in an age of big-budget live service games packed with must-have microtransactions, so maybe on the whole it balances out.

But I’m trying to focus on the positive here, which is the many new games hitting my Steam wishlist.

(Is that a positive? Hm.)

This is the Queue, our daily Q&A column where I make my best attempt to answer your gaming questions. Let’s get to it.

Every week the Epic Games Store gives away a game or two for free. This week, we get two free games that are turn-based, with somewhat similar vibes, but very different gameplay loops. Rogue Waters Release Date: September 30,2024 Game Type: turn-based tactical roguelite POV: 3rd person Party: Single Player DLC: Just the soundtrack. It’s...

People have been logging on to their computers in order to cast spells at other people logged on to their own computers for over four decades. Despite the long history of massively multiplayer online video games, the diversity of genres represented has been sorely lacking. There’s just something about an open world with fantastical humanoids,...

The next World of Warcraft patch is nearly here: the WoW patch 12.0.7 release date is June 16, 2026. Despite some player uncertainty due to an unprecedented number of bugs in patch 12.0.5, which launched April 21, Blizzard was quick to announce new features coming in patch 12.0.7. The new patch is named Midnight: Revelations, and...

It’s time once again for the Hearthstone UnidentifiBrawl Tavern Brawl, which packs your deck with mystery cards. Oh the excitement of watching those last few percentage points tick away from the boss’ heath bar. The sheer anticipation of the wonderful loot. Will this be the kill where your precious object of desire drops? You never...

I’m fishing.

In a video game.

I have never been willing to do this. Diablo 4, I think you’ve broken me.

In this Diablo 4 spoiler-laden lorefest, Joe and Matt discuss the end of the campaign from Lord of Hatred and where it may lead next. The link between Lilith and Mephisto and us was a core element in Lord of Hatred, and we’re discussing the nature of that link, and what that knife had to do...

Hearthstone has a new upcoming expansion, Escape from Violet Hold, and this time VanVan — that’s Vanessa VanCleef for you uninitiated — is commanding a daring prison break from the Violet Hold, now guarded by none other than Maiev Shadowsong. This expansion heavily features a “rule breaking” theme, with cards that have effects like allowing...

It’s Pride Month, which has increasingly been co-opted by companies trotting out the same ol graphic year after year to celebrate. As tiresome and disingenuous as that may be, it does make me a little hopeful, in that if it weren’t profitable for them to puke rainbows, they wouldn’t do it.  And conversely, for some, the message of being unrepentantly visible about supporting Pride will outweigh any consequence.

When I say that you matter, that you deserve the right to not only exist but thrive, and I’m happy you’re here, I truly mean that.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us the questions, and we don’t really have any answers but we’re still showing up anyway.

Most World of Warcraft players have a light Tuesday maintenance ahead of them, with just an hour of downtime for Midnight, Classic, and The Burning Crusade servers. However, with phase 5 rolling out for Mists of Pandaria Classic, it’s expected to be offline most of the day. Here’s the WoW maintenance schedule for Tuesday, June...

Grab your rod and reel because it’s time to go fish up a murloc — not in World of Warcraft, but in Diablo 4. That’s right, it’s been discovered that the adventures in fishing are only beginning, as you can now catch yourself a murloc pet for the low, low cost of… probably several hours...

I went and saw one of my favorite bands last week, Alestorm!

They put on one heck of a great show. The standout is, of course, this giant inflatable duck, but they also had a singing parrot and a rapping shark come out for a couple of songs, so it was a pretty wild time. There was crowd surfing, and a mosh pit, and at one point the mosh pit sat on the floor and all rowed in unison with the singer, and a whole bunch of songs about drinking rum! What’s not to love?

I’m a little sad that they didn’t do their cover of The Last Saskatchewan Pirate, written by a local band, but I can understand not changing the tour setlist for just one stop.

While I dive deep into the pirate metal rabbit hole, it’s time for our daily question and answer column — The Queue!

Grab your mushroom-chopping axe, because we’re headed to Harandar for the first mid-season World of Warcraft raid in several expansions. Midnight’s upcoming patch 12.0.7 includes Sporefall, a single-boss instance with some unique features and new rewards. It seems the Fungarians have been successful in their efforts to create the next big phenom to grace the...

Summer Game Fest is coming on Friday, and we’re pretty excited — not so much for the big corporate showcase, but for all of the fantastic smaller showcases that are going on all week. Showcases started last week with Six One Indie, and will last into next week, flooding our Steam wishlists with new games...

One of the discussions around the current state of affairs in World of Warcraft centers around repair costs — namely, how expensive they’re getting. They’re nothing new, of course; repair bills for armor have existed since vanilla, both as a gold sink and as a roleplaying feature. It’s oddly hard to find concrete info about how...

Discord accounts being hacked is a hot topic every few months, as a new scam surfaces and people warn each other via network. We’ve all been DMed by scammers saying they accidentally reported your Steam account, or the new one I’ve heard is a hacker will post a message with a link to (read more),...