The Embracer Group is shutting down Onoma just months after its acquisition, with some staff set to be transferred to sister studio Eidos Montreal, Bloomberg reports. The closure will impact some 200 employees.

Formerly known as Square Enix Montreal, Onoma was acquired along with the rest of Square Enix's former western holdings back in August. It subsequently took on the name Onoma back in October.

According to Bloomberg, the move is likely a cost-cutting measure, as Eidos Montreal is reportedly reducing the scope of one project and plans to cancel another. Eidos Montreal is also reportedly helping Microsoft to develop a game in the Fable franchise, though it's unclear if it's serving as a support studio for Playground Games' Fable project. It appears to be similar to the deal that Crystal Dynamics has with The Initiative to co-develop Perfect Dark.

CDE Entertainment, the Embracer-owned group comprised of assets acquired from Square Enix, sent the following statement to GI.biz from director Phil Rogers:

With the opportunity to form the 12th operative group within Embracer we have massive ambitions across Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal. We see the growth opportunities centered around our premier franchises and AAA games. Closing publishing QA and our Onoma studio is a difficult decision and one that we've taken with great care and consideration. We greatly thank all those team members for their contributions over the years and hope to find proper placements for as many as possible.

Founded in 2011, Onoma was best-known for its work on the well-regarded Go series of mobile games, which included Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go, and Deus Ex Go. It was also working on an Avatar: The Last Airbender mobile MMO via its London studio.

Onoma was one of many studios acquired in the midst of Embracer Group's acquisition spree, which also included the rights to various Lord of the Rings media properties and more. IGN has reached out to The Embracer Group for a statement and will update as necessary.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Alan Wake and Control developer Remedy has five games in development, and the studio shared minor updates on each one through a recent business release.

Remedy CEO Tero Virtala said Alan Wake 2 is in the "full production stage", and that it's still on track to release in 2023. Virtala said the "game is coming together on all fronts", but there is a lot of work left to do. We haven't heard about Alan Wake 2 since Remedy shared new concept art in May, but at the time, director Sam Lake said a lot of the game was already playable.

There are two Control projects in the works, Codename Condor and Codename Heron. Codename Condor is the 4-player co-op PvE title announced last summer. Virtala said this multiplayer project is still in the proof-of-concept stage. Codename Heron, meanwhile, is Remedy's bigger-budget Control game currently in the concept stage.

Remedy and Tencent are co-publishing Vanguard: A free-to-play cooperative multiplayer title that is also still in the proof-of-concept stage. When the game was announced last December, it was described as a "free-to-play, co-operative PvE shooter that combines Remedy's narrative expertise and action gameplay into an immersive multiplayer experience." Beyond that, we still don't know much about Vanguard.

Finally, Virtala briefly wrote about the Max Payne 1&2 Remake Remedy is working on alongside Rockstar Games, saying development continued with "a small core team". That remake was announced in April, where we learned Remedy would handle development on Alan Wake 2 and Control's Northlight game engine.

Alan Wake 2 is the only one of Remedy's projects with a release window. Beyond that, we have no concept of when Remedy's Control projects or partnerships with Tencent and Rockstar will be completed. Until we know more, you can also look foward to the Alan Wake TV show in development at AMC.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Alan Wake and Control developer Remedy has five games in development, and the studio shared minor updates on each one through a recent business release.

Remedy CEO Tero Virtala said Alan Wake 2 is in the "full production stage", and that it's still on track to release in 2023. Virtala said the "game is coming together on all fronts", but there is a lot of work left to do. We haven't heard about Alan Wake 2 since Remedy shared new concept art in May, but at the time, director Sam Lake said a lot of the game was already playable.

There are two Control projects in the works, Codename Condor and Codename Heron. Codename Condor is the 4-player co-op PvE title announced last summer. Virtala said this multiplayer project is still in the proof-of-concept stage. Codename Heron, meanwhile, is Remedy's bigger-budget Control game currently in the concept stage.

Remedy and Tencent are co-publishing Vanguard: A free-to-play cooperative multiplayer title that is also still in the proof-of-concept stage. When the game was announced last December, it was described as a "free-to-play, co-operative PvE shooter that combines Remedy's narrative expertise and action gameplay into an immersive multiplayer experience." Beyond that, we still don't know much about Vanguard.

Finally, Virtala briefly wrote about the Max Payne 1&2 Remake Remedy is working on alongside Rockstar Games, saying development continued with "a small core team". That remake was announced in April, where we learned Remedy would handle development on Alan Wake 2 and Control's Northlight game engine.

Alan Wake 2 is the only one of Remedy's projects with a release window. Beyond that, we have no concept of when Remedy's Control projects or partnerships with Tencent and Rockstar will be completed. Until we know more, you can also look foward to the Alan Wake TV show in development at AMC.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Blizzard has announced that it is temporarily removing Overwatch 2 hero Mei from the game due to a bug. The character is expected to return to the game alongside the next patch, which is due out on November 15.

"We are temporarily disabling Mei to address a bug with her Ice Wall ability that allows heroes to reach unintended locations," Blizzard stated in a tweet from its customer service account. "We are working to address these issues as quickly as possible and aim to bring Mei back in our next upcoming patch which is set for November 15."

[#OW2] We are temporarily disabling Mei to address a bug with her Ice Wall ability that allows heroes to reach unintended locations. We are working to address these issues as quickly as possible and aim to bring Mei back in our next upcoming patch which is set for November 15. pic.twitter.com/dHP65pMCsX

— Blizzard CS - The Americas (@BlizzardCS) October 31, 2022

The bug allowed Mei to use her wall to get her to locations outside the gameplay boundaries, which frequently resulted in players being able to hide out of sight from opponents and earn easy damage and kills. The exploit can be seen in this clip posted on Reddit.

This move comes just weeks after heroes Bastion and Torbjörn were also removed from the game for bugs that were causing serious disruptions to gameplay as well. Their removal was one of many issues that plagued the game's rocky launch, including extensive queue times and incessant DDoS attacks.

Although the team is working dilligently on character bugs, they won't be looking to rebalance any of Overwatch 2's heros for another month or so. In a recent blog post, Blizzard stated that they'll be looking at that type of in-depth rebalancing no sooner than December.

In our Overwatch 2 review, we called the game "a very fun team-based FPS, packed full of charm and love for the world it takes place in."

You can download and play it for free right now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Billy Givens is a freelancer at IGN with over a decade of experience writing gaming, film, and tech content. His work can also be found on GameSpot, USA Today, Digital Trends, Tom's Guide, and more. You'll find him blabbering on about video games and more on Twitter at @mektige.

Blizzard has announced that it is temporarily removing Overwatch 2 hero Mei from the game due to a bug. The character is expected to return to the game alongside the next patch, which is due out on November 15.

"We are temporarily disabling Mei to address a bug with her Ice Wall ability that allows heroes to reach unintended locations," Blizzard stated in a tweet from its customer service account. "We are working to address these issues as quickly as possible and aim to bring Mei back in our next upcoming patch which is set for November 15."

[#OW2] We are temporarily disabling Mei to address a bug with her Ice Wall ability that allows heroes to reach unintended locations. We are working to address these issues as quickly as possible and aim to bring Mei back in our next upcoming patch which is set for November 15. pic.twitter.com/dHP65pMCsX

— Blizzard CS - The Americas (@BlizzardCS) October 31, 2022

The bug allowed Mei to use her wall to get her to locations outside the gameplay boundaries, which frequently resulted in players being able to hide out of sight from opponents and earn easy damage and kills. The exploit can be seen in this clip posted on Reddit.

This move comes just weeks after heroes Bastion and Torbjörn were also removed from the game for bugs that were causing serious disruptions to gameplay as well. Their removal was one of many issues that plagued the game's rocky launch, including extensive queue times and incessant DDoS attacks.

Although the team is working dilligently on character bugs, they won't be looking to rebalance any of Overwatch 2's heros for another month or so. In a recent blog post, Blizzard stated that they'll be looking at that type of in-depth rebalancing no sooner than December.

In our Overwatch 2 review, we called the game "a very fun team-based FPS, packed full of charm and love for the world it takes place in."

You can download and play it for free right now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Billy Givens is a freelancer at IGN with over a decade of experience writing gaming, film, and tech content. His work can also be found on GameSpot, USA Today, Digital Trends, Tom's Guide, and more. You'll find him blabbering on about video games and more on Twitter at @mektige.

The Last of Us is the next video game to get its own board game adaptation. Naughty Dog has announced a partnership with Themeborne — creators of the Escape the Dark series — to create a tabletop game titled The Last of Us: Escape the Dark.

Escape the Dark is a series of cooperative board games featuring black and white illustrated chapter cards that players work to solve together. Themeborne's take on The Last of Us will have 1-5 players take control of Ellie, Joel, Tess, Bill, Tommy, or Marlene as they attempt to reach safety while exploring an open-world map.

The gameplay features familiar locations from the original Last of Us, including the Suburbs, Sewers, and University, and a combination of human and infected enemies. You can take a first look at the board game below, which shows off the illustrated cards.

The board game's Kickstarter campaign begins on November 8. Naughty Dog said fans will get a closer look at the game and a chance to secure a collector's edition when the campaign goes live.

The Last of Us: Escape the Dark is the latest in a string of reveals for Last of Us fans. Naughty Dog released a remake of the original game this year in the form of The Last of Us Part I, and The Last of Us HBO series is apparently coming in January. Then there's The Last of Us multiplayer project, which got a small teaser this past summer.

For more on video game board and card game adaptations, check out the newly-revealed Lightning card for the Final Fantasy TCG. Or, learn about the upcoming Elden Ring: The Board Game from Bandai Namco and Steamforged Games.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

The Last of Us is the next video game to get its own board game adaptation. Naughty Dog has announced a partnership with Themeborne — creators of the Escape the Dark series — to create a tabletop game titled The Last of Us: Escape the Dark.

Escape the Dark is a series of cooperative board games featuring black and white illustrated chapter cards that players work to solve together. Themeborne's take on The Last of Us will have 1-5 players take control of Ellie, Joel, Tess, Bill, Tommy, or Marlene as they attempt to reach safety while exploring an open-world map.

The gameplay features familiar locations from the original Last of Us, including the Suburbs, Sewers, and University, and a combination of human and infected enemies. You can take a first look at the board game below, which shows off the illustrated cards.

The board game's Kickstarter campaign begins on November 8. Naughty Dog said fans will get a closer look at the game and a chance to secure a collector's edition when the campaign goes live.

The Last of Us: Escape the Dark is the latest in a string of reveals for Last of Us fans. Naughty Dog released a remake of the original game this year in the form of The Last of Us Part I, and The Last of Us HBO series is apparently coming in January. Then there's The Last of Us multiplayer project, which got a small teaser this past summer.

For more on video game board and card game adaptations, check out the newly-revealed Lightning card for the Final Fantasy TCG. Or, learn about the upcoming Elden Ring: The Board Game from Bandai Namco and Steamforged Games.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

The Hearthstone team today announced a hugely exciting set of updates. Let me just bullet point it out for you to give you an idea of the scope, and then we'll dive into the details:

- The Death Knight class is being added to Hearthstone and has impressively varied gameplay thanks to a Blood/Frost/Undead rune system and corpse mechanic. It will have 68 cards at launch.

- Alongside the new class will be a new expansion - March of the Lich King, which is rooted in Warcraft lore and is based around the Lich King's Scourge attacking the Blood Elves of Silvermoon City. It will introduce a new keyword - Manathirst.

- Undead is a new minion type debuting with the set, and hundreds of legacy cards have also been tagged as Undead. Many minions are now dual-type too.

- Hearthstone is getting its first neutral spell - The Sunwell. Not only that, if you log into the game now you'll get it for free.

- Starting now and going through to the release of March of the Lich King (on December 6), the entire Knights of the Frozen Throne set (originally released in 2017 and the first expansion to feature hero cards) has been added back to the Standard format.

- Signature cards are being introduced to Hearthstone, which have alternate expansion-specific art.

Okay, let's go over the above in more detail.

The Death Knight Class & Runes

The Death Knight is only the second new class that's been added to Hearthstone beyond the initial nine, and the team has really gone all-in to represent the myriad of ways there are to play Death Knight in World of Warcraft. At the core of its identity is the new rune system, which allows players to specialise in three different areas: Blood, Frost and Unholy.

When building a Death Knight deck, players have three rune slots they can fill, and most - but not all - Death Knight class cards have a rune requirement on them. If you're triple Frost, for instance, you can include cards with one, two and three Frost runes on them, but can't include any Blood or Unholy cards. On the other hand, if you include Frost cards with only one and two rune requirements, your third rune slot can be Blood or Unholy, allowing you to splash in certain cards from one of those other alignments.

It's an involved new system, allowing for ten different combinations: BBB, FFF, UUU, BBU, BBF, FFB, FFU, UUB, UUF and BFU. Each of the three alignments, as you'd expect, has different strengths, weaknesses and play styles. Blood DKs are the control option, with huge minions, health manipulation and lifesteal. Frost DKs are all about spell synergies, direct damage, mana manipulation and some freeze. Unholy DKs, meanwhile, swarm their enemies with armies of the undead, so are aggressive, go wide, buff minions and are the masters of Corpses (which we'll get to shortly).

When Death Knight launches, the first thing you'll do is play through the class' Prologue, which tells the story of Arthas Menethil as he goes down his dark path and faces off against major Warcraft figures like Uthar, Sylvanas, Illidan and Mal'Ganis. The Prologue serves as an introduction to the Death Knight's mechanics and once you finish it the class is unlocked and you get the 32 Core cards and three starter decks. (The DK Core set, incidentally, is nearly twice the size of the other classes, and will continue to be that large in the future.)

Death Knights will launch with a total of 68 cards, which is 50% larger than Demon Hunter, which had 45 on release. Beyond the Core set, the Path of Arthas bundle will have 26 cards (the same number the other classes have received through expansions and mini-sets this year) and will come with three "advanced" decks. That bundle can be purchased separately, but it's also included in the March of the Lich King pre-order Mega Bundle. And finally, Death Knights will have ten class cards in the new expansion, just like the other classes.

It's a lot, but the Hearthstone team's goal is to ensure that there are enough cards for each of the specialisations to have a viable deck or two, so no matter how you want to play your DK, you'll be able to do so. Now, let's talk Corpses.

Ghoul Charge, Corpses and the Undead

Death Knights are all about raising the dead, and this aspect of the class is reflected in both its hero power and in its use of Corpses. Corpses are an additional resource that Death Knights can call upon. A Corpse is added to the tally (shown beneath the mana bar) any time a friendly minion dies (although there are some exceptions), and then there are cards that spend those Corpses - generally for some bonus effect.

Crucially, generating Corpses is built into the hero power, which is called Ghoul Charge and summons a 1/1 ghoul with charge that dies at end of turn. Essentially it's a one damage ping, but also a guaranteed Corpse. A specialisation like Unholy also has a number of Corpse generating cards, all of which tie into the strategy of choosing which runes to utilise - perhaps you add in a single Unholy alongside two Blood to ensure you have enough Corpses to activate Blood's Corpse spenders?

To really cement this use of the undead, Hearthstone is also officially adding Undead as a minion type. And not just that, there will be Undead synergy ("If a friendly Undead died after your last turn...") baked into the March of the Lich King set. Many of the new Undead are also Reborn (two Corpses for the price of one!), and the Undead change is retroactive, so hundreds of old cards have been freshly classified as Undead. Cards can now have two types too, so Patches the Pirate, for instance, is now both a Pirate and a Demon.

March of the Lich King

Hearthstone has delved more into classic Warcraft settings and characters over the last few years, and the new expansion, March of the Lich King, very much continues that trend. Set at the start of the second Scourge war (i.e. the events of Wrath of the Lich King), March of the Lich King is centred around Silvermoon City under siege, with half the classes aligned with the Scourge (Death Knight, Warlock, Priest, Shaman, Rogue and Druid), and half with Silvermoon and the Blood Elves (Hunter, Paladin, Warrior, Mage and Demon Hunter).

Each group of classes has shared themes. The Scourge classes, for instance, are concerned with the Undead, so Priests are raising the dead (small minions, don't worry) and Warlocks are using soul magic. These classes have other interesting things going on. Rogue, for instance, is crafting concoctions, while the Nerubian link for Druids is back.

The Blood Elves of Silvermoon, meanwhile, have a (sometimes unhealthy) reliance on magical power, and that's reflected in their unifying mechanic - Manathirst. Cards with Manathirst gain a bonus effect if you have the requisite amount of mana. They don't spend the mana, they just get better at a certain point in the game. In terms of specific classes, the Mages belong to the Magisters and are masters of arcane magic, the Blood Knights are darker, more vengeful Paladins who have bent the light to their will by force, and the Fel Blood Elves are Demon Hunters and fel-addled outcasts.

Signature Cards

Signature cards will also debut with March of the Lich King. These are a new cosmetic type of card featuring alternate art in an expansion-specific style and with a card frame that showcases the full art. 18 March of the Lich King cards will have a signature variant (15 of these are legendaries) and they come as a rare drop in card packs and are not craftable. Along with this, golden packs will be upgraded to "Signature Golden Packs" that have a "high chance" of including signature cards. Golden packs can be directly purchased now too.

The Knights of the Frozen Throne Return!

Back in 2017, Hearthstone asked the question - what if each of its (then nine) classes became Death Knights? The result was the introduction of hero cards and the Knights of the Frozen Throne set. It's one of the most popular expansions Hearthstone has ever had, and the ideal set to bring back to the Standard format leading into the introduction of the Death Knight class... which is exactly what Team 5 is doing with the Knights of Hallow's End event.

If you log into Hearthstone now, you'll discover all the Knights of the Frozen Cards have been added to your collection - they've become part of the Core set and will hang around until the launch of March of the Lich King. The hero cards are certainly memorable - some verging on infamous - but will they be any good in 2022? It's going to be a lot of fun finding out.

That's not the only thing you'll discover if you log into Hearthstone today. You'll also get Hearthstone's very first neutral spell, The Sunwell, for free. It has a very interesting effect, and will be entertaining to play with, even if it doesn't wind up being all that strong.

Lastly, March of the Lich King will be released on December 6 in NA (so, December 7 in ANZ/Asia Pacific), and pre-order bundles are now live, so be sure to check out the details. For now, be sure to check out our Designing Death Knight video and our feature in which we go deep into the development of the new class with Team 5.

Cam Shea has been playing Hearthstone since beta and went behind the scenes of the Demon Hunter development process back in 2019/2020. When he's not playing games he's mixing records.

The Hearthstone team today announced a hugely exciting set of updates. Let me just bullet point it out for you to give you an idea of the scope, and then we'll dive into the details:

- The Death Knight class is being added to Hearthstone and has impressively varied gameplay thanks to a Blood/Frost/Undead rune system and corpse mechanic. It will have 68 cards at launch.

- Alongside the new class will be a new expansion - March of the Lich King, which is rooted in Warcraft lore and is based around the Lich King's Scourge attacking the Blood Elves of Silvermoon City. It will introduce a new keyword - Manathirst.

- Undead is a new minion type debuting with the set, and hundreds of legacy cards have also been tagged as Undead. Many minions are now dual-type too.

- Hearthstone is getting its first neutral spell - The Sunwell. Not only that, if you log into the game now you'll get it for free.

- Starting now and going through to the release of March of the Lich King (on December 6), the entire Knights of the Frozen Throne set (originally released in 2017 and the first expansion to feature hero cards) has been added back to the Standard format.

- Signature cards are being introduced to Hearthstone, which have alternate expansion-specific art.

Okay, let's go over the above in more detail.

The Death Knight Class & Runes

The Death Knight is only the second new class that's been added to Hearthstone beyond the initial nine, and the team has really gone all-in to represent the myriad of ways there are to play Death Knight in World of Warcraft. At the core of its identity is the new rune system, which allows players to specialise in three different areas: Blood, Frost and Unholy.

When building a Death Knight deck, players have three rune slots they can fill, and most - but not all - Death Knight class cards have a rune requirement on them. If you're triple Frost, for instance, you can include cards with one, two and three Frost runes on them, but can't include any Blood or Unholy cards. On the other hand, if you include Frost cards with only one and two rune requirements, your third rune slot can be Blood or Unholy, allowing you to splash in certain cards from one of those other alignments.

It's an involved new system, allowing for ten different combinations: BBB, FFF, UUU, BBU, BBF, FFB, FFU, UUB, UUF and BFU. Each of the three alignments, as you'd expect, has different strengths, weaknesses and play styles. Blood DKs are the control option, with huge minions, health manipulation and lifesteal. Frost DKs are all about spell synergies, direct damage, mana manipulation and some freeze. Unholy DKs, meanwhile, swarm their enemies with armies of the undead, so are aggressive, go wide, buff minions and are the masters of Corpses (which we'll get to shortly).

When Death Knight launches, the first thing you'll do is play through the class' Prologue, which tells the story of Arthas Menethil as he goes down his dark path and faces off against major Warcraft figures like Uthar, Sylvanas, Illidan and Mal'Ganis. The Prologue serves as an introduction to the Death Knight's mechanics and once you finish it the class is unlocked and you get the 32 Core cards and three starter decks. (The DK Core set, incidentally, is nearly twice the size of the other classes, and will continue to be that large in the future.)

Death Knights will launch with a total of 68 cards, which is 50% larger than Demon Hunter, which had 45 on release. Beyond the Core set, the Path of Arthas bundle will have 26 cards (the same number the other classes have received through expansions and mini-sets this year) and will come with three "advanced" decks. That bundle can be purchased separately, but it's also included in the March of the Lich King pre-order Mega Bundle. And finally, Death Knights will have ten class cards in the new expansion, just like the other classes.

It's a lot, but the Hearthstone team's goal is to ensure that there are enough cards for each of the specialisations to have a viable deck or two, so no matter how you want to play your DK, you'll be able to do so. Now, let's talk Corpses.

Ghoul Charge, Corpses and the Undead

Death Knights are all about raising the dead, and this aspect of the class is reflected in both its hero power and in its use of Corpses. Corpses are an additional resource that Death Knights can call upon. A Corpse is added to the tally (shown beneath the mana bar) any time a friendly minion dies (although there are some exceptions), and then there are cards that spend those Corpses - generally for some bonus effect.

Crucially, generating Corpses is built into the hero power, which is called Ghoul Charge and summons a 1/1 ghoul with charge that dies at end of turn. Essentially it's a one damage ping, but also a guaranteed Corpse. A specialisation like Unholy also has a number of Corpse generating cards, all of which tie into the strategy of choosing which runes to utilise - perhaps you add in a single Unholy alongside two Blood to ensure you have enough Corpses to activate Blood's Corpse spenders?

To really cement this use of the undead, Hearthstone is also officially adding Undead as a minion type. And not just that, there will be Undead synergy ("If a friendly Undead died after your last turn...") baked into the March of the Lich King set. Many of the new Undead are also Reborn (two Corpses for the price of one!), and the Undead change is retroactive, so hundreds of old cards have been freshly classified as Undead. Cards can now have two types too, so Patches the Pirate, for instance, is now both a Pirate and a Demon.

March of the Lich King

Hearthstone has delved more into classic Warcraft settings and characters over the last few years, and the new expansion, March of the Lich King, very much continues that trend. Set at the start of the second Scourge war (i.e. the events of Wrath of the Lich King), March of the Lich King is centred around Silvermoon City under siege, with half the classes aligned with the Scourge (Death Knight, Warlock, Priest, Shaman, Rogue and Druid), and half with Silvermoon and the Blood Elves (Hunter, Paladin, Warrior, Mage and Demon Hunter).

Each group of classes has shared themes. The Scourge classes, for instance, are concerned with the Undead, so Priests are raising the dead (small minions, don't worry) and Warlocks are using soul magic. These classes have other interesting things going on. Rogue, for instance, is crafting concoctions, while the Nerubian link for Druids is back.

The Blood Elves of Silvermoon, meanwhile, have a (sometimes unhealthy) reliance on magical power, and that's reflected in their unifying mechanic - Manathirst. Cards with Manathirst gain a bonus effect if you have the requisite amount of mana. They don't spend the mana, they just get better at a certain point in the game. In terms of specific classes, the Mages belong to the Magisters and are masters of arcane magic, the Blood Knights are darker, more vengeful Paladins who have bent the light to their will by force, and the Fel Blood Elves are Demon Hunters and fel-addled outcasts.

Signature Cards

Signature cards will also debut with March of the Lich King. These are a new cosmetic type of card featuring alternate art in an expansion-specific style and with a card frame that showcases the full art. 18 March of the Lich King cards will have a signature variant (15 of these are legendaries) and they come as a rare drop in card packs and are not craftable. Along with this, golden packs will be upgraded to "Signature Golden Packs" that have a "high chance" of including signature cards. Golden packs can be directly purchased now too.

The Knights of the Frozen Throne Return!

Back in 2017, Hearthstone asked the question - what if each of its (then nine) classes became Death Knights? The result was the introduction of hero cards and the Knights of the Frozen Throne set. It's one of the most popular expansions Hearthstone has ever had, and the ideal set to bring back to the Standard format leading into the introduction of the Death Knight class... which is exactly what Team 5 is doing with the Knights of Hallow's End event.

If you log into Hearthstone now, you'll discover all the Knights of the Frozen Cards have been added to your collection - they've become part of the Core set and will hang around until the launch of March of the Lich King. The hero cards are certainly memorable - some verging on infamous - but will they be any good in 2022? It's going to be a lot of fun finding out.

That's not the only thing you'll discover if you log into Hearthstone today. You'll also get Hearthstone's very first neutral spell, The Sunwell, for free. It has a very interesting effect, and will be entertaining to play with, even if it doesn't wind up being all that strong.

Lastly, March of the Lich King will be released on December 6 in NA (so, December 7 in ANZ/Asia Pacific), and pre-order bundles are now live, so be sure to check out the details. For now, be sure to check out our Designing Death Knight video and our feature in which we go deep into the development of the new class with Team 5.

Cam Shea has been playing Hearthstone since beta and went behind the scenes of the Demon Hunter development process back in 2019/2020. When he's not playing games he's mixing records.

A senior writer on Horizon: Forbidden West has left Guerrilla Games to join Playground and work on the upcoming Xbox exclusive Fable reboot.

As reported by Eurogamer, Andrew Walsh announced on LinkedIn that he was leaving the world of PlayStation to start work on its rival Xbox's upcoming fantasy game developed by the Forza Horizon studio.

This won't be Walsh's first foray into Fable, however, as he previously served as narrative lead on the cancelled co-op spin-off game Fable Legends, working at the now defunct Lionhead Studios from 2013 to 2015.

Walsh had most recently served as associate narrative director on the PlayStation VR 2's Horizon: Call of the Mountain, but has a long-running career in video game writing. He's previously worked on Watch Dogs Legion, The Division 2, Shadow of the Beast, and more.

It's still unknown when fans can expect to see more of the legendary fantasy franchise, but it's certainly been a long wait so far, given Fable for Xbox Series X was officially announced more than two years ago in July 2020.

Xbox has shared that it's being developed using the Forza Engine and that the game will mark "a new beginning" for the Fable franchise, but has remained tight-lipped otherwise.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.