What we talked about.
Blizzard is making a StarCraft shooter. Diablo 5 is bringing back some old friends.
And apparently, your XBOX can now play PlayStation games.
🚀 StarCraft Is Getting a Shooter. Again!
Blizzard is taking another crack at turning StarCraft into something other than a real-time strategy game. This time, it's a third-person shooter, and the developers are determined to make players feel powerful. Which sounds fantastic. We've always wanted to experience the StarCraft universe from somewhere other than several kilometres above the battlefield, desperately clicking on tiny units while being shouted at for not building enough pylons. Of course, anyone who remembers StarCraft: Ghost will be approaching this announcement with cautious optimism. Blizzard has been down this road before, and we'd quite like this one to actually come out.
🔥 Diablo 5 Is Bringing Back the Classics
Diablo 5 is looking to the past for its next adventure, bringing back familiar classes from Diablo 3 alongside one rather interesting exception. Blizzard seems keen to remind everyone why we fell in love with Diablo in the first place. Familiar characters, enormous monsters, mountains of loot and the never-ending quest to find a pair of boots that's slightly better than the ones you're already wearing. The real challenge will be making Diablo 5 feel like a proper step forward rather than Diablo 3 wearing a slightly more expensive coat.
🟢 XBOX Game Pass Without Day-One Games?
Reports of potential changes to XBOX Game Pass have Microsoft doing some explaining. Among the possibilities being discussed is the removal of day-one releases from the service. Day-one games have been one of the biggest reasons to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate. Take those away, and suddenly the subscription starts looking a lot more like an expensive library card. Microsoft has responded to the reports, but the whole conversation raises a bigger issue about where Game Pass goes next. Between rising prices, changing subscription tiers and an increasingly confusing XBOX strategy, keeping up with Game Pass is starting to require its own spreadsheet.
🏢 Halo Goes to Activision, Obsidian Joins Bethesda?
XBOX's enormous collection of game studios could be getting another shake-up, with reports suggesting Halo's future may move under Activision while Obsidian could become part of Bethesda. That's a lot of moving pieces for a company that already owns half the gaming industry. Halo, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty and The Outer Worlds all living under the same corporate roof was already strange enough. Now Microsoft might be rearranging the furniture while everyone's still sitting on it. Nothing says creative independence quite like being moved into another department because someone in management discovered a new organisational chart.
🎮 Your XBOX Can Play PS5 Games Now. Apparently.
Someone has reportedly managed to get PlayStation 5 games running on an XBOX Series X using a new emulator. We've spent decades arguing about which console has the best exclusives, and now the emulation community is apparently trying to make the whole argument irrelevant. There are still plenty of questions around compatibility, performance and just how practical this actually is. But the idea of an XBOX running PlayStation games is the sort of technical nonsense we absolutely love. Somewhere, a console warrior has just dropped their controller in disbelief. Join Kyle and Lee on The XboxCast as we dive into Blizzard's latest games, Microsoft's plans for XBOX Game Pass, the future of Halo and Obsidian, and the increasingly blurry line between XBOX and PlayStation. We've got opinions, we've got questions, and we've probably misunderstood something along the way. Funny first. Factual second.™