Over the years, there's been a series of rumors that, one day, World of Warcraft would get a console port. Most recently, there's been discussion flaring up again due to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard and the tantalizing idea of an Xbox version, just as FF14 is playable on PlayStation. But at least for now, WoW game director Ion Hazzikostas is dismissing these hopes.

In an interview about the game's newly announced expansion, Dragonflight, I asked Hazzikostas if a console port was on the horizon specifically because of the planned UI overhaul announced as a part of the expansion.

With the MMO getting improved controller support recently and now a fully customizable HUD that players can move around however they like, the time seems ripe to make the jump to consoles.

But Hazzikostas doesn't seem keen.

"Nah, I think World of Warcraft is a game designed from the ground up for the PC," he says. "I think we've just been looking at the ways in which add-ons have at times felt increasingly required, or like the first thing you do when someone comes to the game for the first time is tell them, 'Hey, go download this add-on pack and move this stuff around' and we want to do better for our players."

That's unfortunate news for console hopefuls, but existing PC players can still enjoy the new UI overhaul at least — the first major rework it's gotten since World of Warcraft began.

Sign-ups for the alpha and beta for Dragonflight will soon be live on the official WoW website, though the expansion does not yet have a release date. We also chatted with Hazzikostas about the new Dracthyr Evoker hero class and the overhauls to the UI, the professions system, and talent trees. And we spoke to the WoW Classic leads about some of the changes coming in Wrath of the Lich King Classic, and where Classic might go next.

Activision Blizzard is currently facing serious ongoing allegations of harassment and mistreatment of marginalized workers. To learn more, please visit our timeline as well as our in-depth report on the subject.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

With the announcement today of Wrath of the Lich King Classic, World of Warcraft has now committed to revisiting arguably its most famous and beloved expansion — a time period that could also be looked at as the end of an era.

Wrath represented the peak of World of Warcraft's popularity, and while it's continued to thrive since then, the expansions that followed were very, very different. Cataclysm, specifically, was a moment of dramatic change throughout the "old world" of Azeroth, and saw a major revamp of numerous regions from the original game. That's not to mention the various mechanical and visual changes from that point forward.

It's for those reasons that I asked WoW Classic head Brian Birmingham and production director Patrick Dawson whether or not Blizzard would be interested in taking Classic further after Lich King has run its course. I've asked Blizzard leads the same question twice in the past — once when Classic was unveiled, and again when Burning Crusade was announced. Both times, the answer was a resounding "if the players want it," but with a general optimism toward the idea.

This time, while the answer itself is still the same, the tone of it is a bit more cautious than before. Birmingham starts by acknowledging that while Cataclysm is often thought of as a breaking point, the break actually began in Wrath, with the introduction of the Dungeon Finder tool at the end of the expansion. An introduction that, notably, won't be present at all in the Classic version.

"We're trying to find that balancing point where we can preserve the Classic feeling and still make sure that we're giving people new things to do," he says. "Because obviously [if] you're going to play through it again, you're going to get to the end of it. And you're going to say, 'I want more.' Well, what do we have? We're going to try to make sure that we find something that is satisfying to people that gives them something more to do, and also feels as much like Classic originally. Whether or not that's Cataclysm or something else in the future is something we have not decided today, and we definitely want to hear feedback from the community."

Dawson echoes Birmingham's sentiments, encouraging players to speak up as Wrath continues on what they want to see next.

"This entire game has been a love letter to the fans ever since we decided to make Classic World of Warcraft originally…When we shipped Classic, we really focused on that. We weren't even thinking about the next step necessarily, but almost immediately people said, 'We want Burning Crusade.' And after we shipped Burning Crusade, people almost immediately said, 'Wrath, that's such a cool expansion, can't wait to play that.' We're going to continue to have our focus on Wrath and making sure that's an amazing expansion for the players, but then we'll take that moment afterwards to pause and listen and see what players are saying, what they're thinking, and what they're feeling."

Wrath of the Lich King, announced today, will be added to World of Warcraft: Classic sometime in 2022. We also spoke to Dawson and Birmingham about some of the changes we'll see from the original version of Wrath. And we chatted with the leads of retail World of Warcraft about its upcoming new expansion, Dragonflight, and whether or not it will eventually get a console port.

Activision Blizzard is currently facing serious ongoing allegations of harassment and mistreatment of marginalized workers. To learn more, please visit our timeline as well as our in-depth report on the subject.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Given that the next major expansion to World of Warcraft is themed around dragons, it's only natural that we finally get to actually play as a dragon with the new Dracthyr Evoker hero class. It may not look exactly like the dragons we're used to seeing fly around Azeroth, but that's probably for the best — the actual Dracthyr have quite a bit more going on.

We spoke with game director Ion Hazzikostas and narrative director Steve Danuser ahead of the announcement about the Dracthyr, beginning with a fundamental question: why make a combination hero class/race where Dracthyr can only be Evokers, and Evokers can only be Dracthyr?

Hazzikostas says that the team started with the concept of the Dracthyr race, and came to the conclusions about the Evoker class organically from the lore.

"Once we really got excited about the idea of chasing a customizable full player race that delivered the fantasy of being a dragon, being a descendant of the dragons in Azeroth, well, then the natural next question was: what classes can they be or should they be? Pretty rapidly, we realized that none of our existing classes was exactly the right fit. The fantasy of being a dragon— they call down powers that are different than what mages or warriors or any of our known classes do. And of course, by their nature, they have these unique physical gifts, like literal wings and claws, the ability to unleash breath weapons…An elf is never going to be able to literally take flight and do a soaring deep breath over their enemies. Only a Drakthyr can do that."

Danuser broke down the Dracthyr a bit further for us, describing their magical abilities that are tied with each of the five dragonflights: blue, red, green, gold, and black. As shown in the Deep Dive video, the class specializations of the Dracthyr allow them to be either a healer, focusing on green and bronze magic, or a ranged damage dealer, focusing on red and blue. They can cast magic while flying around the battlefield, and have a new ability called "Empower" that involves holding down a button to charge up the next spell, changing its power or how many targets it hits. It's a first-of-its-kind ability for World of Warcraft.

What's most immediately striking about the Dracthyr, however, isn't their magic or their abilities. It's their customization. Dracthyr don't look entirely like the dragon models we normally see in Azeroth, which is probably sensible given that players actually have to be able to control them in battle and a giant flying beast running around a battle arena would cause some serious game imbalance. But Dracthyr are still quite draconic, and can customize two forms — human and dragon — with different colors, scale styles, and other visual tidbits reminiscent of the different dragonflights. They can even have multicolored hair.

Don't worry, though. A Dracthyr's aesthetic isn't tied to the magic they use. Even though in the story a green dragon explicitly uses green dragon magic, Dracthyr will get to use all five types regardless of appearance.

As a hero class, the Dracthyr will start at a higher level than other classes and will begin in a unique starting zone located as a part of the new Dragon Isles. They'll begin their story with a unique introductory questline, before joining other players to explore the rest of the Dragon Isles throughout Dragonflight.

Sign-ups for the alpha and beta for Dragonflight will soon be live on the official WoW website, though the expansion does not yet have a release date. We also chatted with Hazzikostas and Danuser about the big changes to fundamental WoW systems in Dragonflight, and rumors of a WoW console port. And we spoke to the WoW Classic leads about some of the changes coming in Wrath of the Lich King Classic, and where Classic might go next.

Activision Blizzard is currently facing serious ongoing allegations of harassment and mistreatment of marginalized workers. To learn more, please visit our timeline as well as our in-depth report on the subject.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Blizzard has just announced the (rather unsurprising) next step for World of Warcraft: Classic. Later this year, it's moving on to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Originally launched in 2008, Wrath of the Lich King brought with it numerous additions that put WoW firmly on the road to being the MMORPG that it is today. They included the massive Northrend map; famous dungeons such as Violet Hold and the Culling of Stratholme, and numerous raids ranging from an updated Naxxramas to the frigid finale in Icecrown Citadel. It also added features such as an achievement system, the inscription profession, and the game's first hero class: the Death Knight.

By and large, Wrath of the Lich King's revival in WoW Classic will mirror the version fans remember, though there will be some changes. One of the biggest differences is the absence of a dungeon finder system, which was originally added to the game at the end of Wrath of the Lich King. According to WoW Classic lead Brian Birmingham, the decision not to add the dungeon finder at all was made to keep what the team perceives to be the spirit of the WoW Classic community.

"We know that the Classic audience is more interested in long-term social engagement, that feeling that comes from reaching out to people, talking to them about how you're going to group, trying to coordinate, who's going to do what role walking to the dungeon together, trying to figure out how you're going to get to the dungeon, who's going to summon, maybe run into a PVP fight on the way,” Birmingham says. “And then you finally get in there and you have friends that stick together with you."

Birmingham assures fans that the team is looking at improvements to the grouping tools already introduced in Burning Crusade Classic, as well as adjustments to help guide players to appropriate chat channels where they can find others to group up with. They're also looking at some adjustments to the raiding and lockout systems, so players don't feel obligated to run four versions of the same raid per week to optimize their characters.

In terms of smaller but still highly meaningful changes, Blizzard will honor a number of the adjustments made to in-game texts and character depictions to improve sensitivity and inclusivity. For example, a new human racial ability that was originally added in Lich King, called "Every Man For Himself," will be called "Will to Survive" as it is in the current version of WoW. The barber shop — another element added in Wrath of the Lich King — will cost in-game money instead of real money, and will include the ability to change a character's gender.

"One of the things I've appreciated about this entire process is it's really been an exercise in listening to our team," says production director Patrick Dawson of the changes. "And [we] just hear any feedback from all the developers that work on the game about things that they might raise an eyebrow to, versus things that they just think we’re okay, or part of the content. It's really good that we're able to take action on those things that feel like, we wouldn't make that decision today. Let's make sure we are not shipping a game with something that we wouldn't have done."

Another shift Classic players might want to take note of is how Blizzard is handling the transition from Burning Crusade to Lich King. When Burning Crusade was first announced, Blizzard allowed players to choose whether they wanted to stay in the original World of Warcraft Classic or move to Burning Crusade. While those who opted to stay in the original version can still remain there, this time there won't be an option to keep characters in The Burning Crusade expansion. Everyone who's already in Burning Crusade must move on to Wrath of the Lich King.

Fortunately, Dawson says that not many people currently in Burning Crusade want to stick around in that expansion anyway.

"People want to experience certain eras of WoW in the progression style that is meaningful, and Burning Crusade has done that," he says. "I think there are opportunities in the future to look at different seasonal content we can provide to people who are looking [to] revisit BC or… revisit Classic again. It's something we're always keeping an eye on to see what we could do."

Wrath of the Lich King will be added to World of Warcraft: Classic sometime in 2022. We also spoke to Dawson and Birmingham about the future of Classic and whether or not it would move on to Cataclysm eventually. And we chatted with the leads of retail World of Warcraft about its upcoming new expansion, Dragonflight, and whether or not it will eventually get a console port.

Activision Blizzard is currently facing serious ongoing allegations of harassment and mistreatment of marginalized workers. To learn more, please visit our timeline as well as our in-depth report on the subject.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

The Halo composers who sued Microsoft over unpaid royalties have seemingly settled the lawsuit.

Marty O'Donnell and Mike Salvatori filed the suit in February claiming that Microsoft was not paying them the agreed upon amount for using their music in the upcoming Halo TV series.

In a tweet earlier today, however, O'Donnell said that "Microsoft and O'Donnell/Salvatori Inc are pleased to have amicably resolved their differences."

Looks like I'll be able to share some of those videos once again! Microsoft and O’Donnell/Salvatori, Inc., are pleased to have amicably resolved their differences.https://t.co/ZLnhFgblr6

— Marty O'Donnell (@MartyTheElder) April 18, 2022

The pair had originally claimed they signed a contract with Microsoft that guaranteed them 20% of the profits made from their music, such as in the Halo TV show, soundtracks, and so on.

O'Donnell told Eurogamer at the time: "If this is 20% then it doesn't seem like Microsoft is really making much money." Microsoft disagreed, saying that their music was made as work-for-hire, meaning it owned the music and not them.

A pre-trial date was set for May 9 this year but now, due to the apparent settlement, proceedings will have been called off.

The Halo TV show premiered in March on Paramount+ and four out of an eventual nine episodes have aired so far.

In our 7/10 review of episode one, IGN said: "While the Halo series struggles the capture the dynamic action of the games, the first episode succeeds in building a compelling narrative that forges its own path."

IGN has reached out to Microsoft for comment.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Five years after Visceral Games' closure spelled the end of Amy Hennig's first attempt at a Star Wars game, the director best-known for her work on Uncharted is trying again, this time at Skydance Media.

Skydance Media announced today that Hennig is working on a brand-new game set in the Star Wars universe. Little is known about the new project save that it will be a "richly cinematic action-adventure game featuring an original story" set in the Star Wars galaxy.

Hennig's new Star Wars game is her second project at Skydance New Media, where she is also working on a "completely original" game set in the Marvel universe. Hennig first joined Skydance Media in 2019, where she started a new division based around "story-focused experiences [that] will employ state-of-the-art computer graphics to provide the visual fidelity of television and film, but with an active, lean-in experience that puts the audience in the driver's seat".

Hennig was previously employed at EA, where she was working on an unnamed Star Wars project known as Project Ragtag. The project was said to be in the style of the Uncharted series, but was delayed and finally canceled as EA shuttered Visceral Games and sought to move the project in a different direction.

Reports from Kotaku painted a picture of an ambitious title that was nevertheless at odds with EA's direction at the time. EA would later release a single-player Star Wars game of its own in Jedi: Fallen Order.

Hennig's project joins a raft of Star Wars titles from developers including EA, Ubisoft, and Quantic Dream. The new projects come in the wake of Disney reviving Lucasfilm Games and expanding the license after years of EA exclusivity. Earlier this month, TT Games released LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which we described as a rollicking reimagining of Star Wars' most iconic moments.

Hennig's Star Wars game does not yet have a release date.

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.

If you've ever found yourself thinking you don't have enough giant, transforming robot figures in your life, Hasbro has your back. Beginning later today, you can preorder the Transformers: Generations Legacy Series Titan Cybertron Universe Metroplex, which is admittedly a mouthful, but check out the gallery below to see some images of this massive figure.

Transformers: Generations Legacy Series Titan Cybertron Universe Metroplex

At a whopping 22-inches tall, Metroplex has 52 steps to transform from robot to excavator. In robot mode, it includes "a flip-down welding mask," because safety is absolutely paramount for even gigantic transforming sentient robots.

The Generations Legacy Series brings together multiple Transformers universes "all in one toy line," to celebrate over 40 years of transforming robot action. Each figure in the Legacy line includes a code on its package, and scanning the code shows you "character tech specs from across the multiverse." It's the modern version of that red piece of transparent plastic you used to get to reveal a toy's strengths. I'm here for it.

The Legacy Metroplex retails for $199.99 and can be preordered starting today at 1 pm ET at HasbroPulse.com and "most major toy retailers."

Seth Macy is Executive Editor, IGN Commerce, and just wants to be your friend. You can find him hosting the Nintendo Voice Chat podcast.

Elden Ring's tutorial is somewhat easily missed by new players, but it seems that FromSoftware is aiming to change that with the game's 1.04 update. The new patch adds a tutorial prompt that explains, well, the tutorial.

FromSoftware fans have long enjoyed the studio's esoteric game design, which requires players to figure out just about everything by trial and error, but Elden Ring has offered a solid middle-ground with features that make the game just a bit more accessible.

This has included a larger collection of explanatory text boxes than ever before and even a full-blown tutorial section that explains the core mechanics through a mixture of text and gameplay.

Known as the Cave of Knowledge, the unexpectedly detailed (at least, for a Souls game) tutorial walks players through how to do things like guard-counter, stealth, and use weapon skills. FromSoftware veterans may find the tutorial rehashes some of the things they've been aware of for a decade, but it's a vital part of the experience for newcomers.

The Cave of Knowledge is located in the Stranded Graveyard at the beginning of the game. It can be accessed by dropping down a pit next to a spectral NPC in a chair, who hints at the tutorial below. However, many seemingly missed the pit entirely, or chose not to jump down a dark hole because, well, it's a Souls game.

While there's no mention of it in the 1.04 patch notes, FromSoftware has stealthily added a new automatic text box that appears when players approach the pit, which will explain that the tutorial lies below. You can see a screenshot (taken by IGN) of the new prompt:

While multiple IGN staffers have been able to activate the prompt since the update, a bit of testing has revealed that – at least for now – the prompt isn't appearing for all players after the update, even on fresh saves. We'll update this story if and when we learn more.

Elden Ring's 1.04 update also included a variety of bug fixes and performance improvements, boosts to Colossal weapons and some magic spells, and some new event phases for everyone's favorite jerk Patches. It also nerfs a popular way to beat ultra-tough boss Malenia – you might be hoping to meet Let Me Solo Her.

Billy Givens is a freelance writer at IGN.

The Pokémon Company has entered into an agreement to purchase the company that prints its trading cards.

As reported by gamesindustry.biz, the North Carolina-based Millennium Print Group will become a subsidary of The Pokémon Company - but will continue to operate independently - for an unknown purchase price.

The company has been producing Pokémon Trading Card Game products since 2015 and will be able to do so much more efficiently going forward according to The Pokémon Company president Kenji Okubo.

He said: "The talented team at Millennium Print Group has been an important partner to The Pokémon Company International for many years, helping us bring the Pokémon Trading Card Game to our fans with the quality they expect.

"By joining forces in a more meaningful way, our goal is to enhance the ways our organisations work together and continue to bring the highest quality Pokémon TCG products to market.

"Simultaneously, we aim to develop Millennium into an even better, bigger, state-of-the-art version of their already exceptional organisation, benefitting not just Pokémon, but all of their customers."

Pokémon cards continue to grow in popularity 25 years after the original set was released, as evidenced, among other things, by the number of people trying to steal them.

An independent gaming store in Minnesota reportedly had around $250,000 worth of Pokémon merchandise stolen in February while in March a man was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly launching a literal heist in order to steal the treasured cards.

Also in March, a Georgia man didn't steal Pokémon cards directly but instead misused money from the government to buy one, using a COVID-19 relief payment to buy a rare, shiny Charizard.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

CD Projekt Red is not planning to release its single-player Gwent spin-off, Project Golden Nekker, on consoles.

Gwent Comms lead Paweł Burza confirmed to IGN that the game will be available at launch on PC, iOS, and Android when it is released later this year.

Gwent was available on consoles from December 2018 to June 2020, while another spin-off, The Witcher Tales: Thronebreaker, is still available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

But game director Vladimir Tortsov said on the latest This Week in Gwent - a weekly stream hosted by Burza - that there are currently no plans to bring this new game to consoles.

"With consoles, we left them for a reason," he said. "There was obviously some good about them otherwise it wouldn’t be released on consoles in the first place, but for live service games with frequent updates it was a really tough experience.

"Overall, since we’re not there, we’re not planning to bring any of our spin-offs to consoles at this point."

CD Projekt Red revealed the new spin-off, codenamed Project Golden Nekker, to IGN in January, saying it aims to provide a "captivating single-player experience" different to the mainline multiplayer version of Gwent.

While Thronebreaker is also a single-player spin-off, taking the form of an RPG where players battle using Gwent cards, Project Golden Nekker will be something else entirely – we just don't know what that is right now.

CD Projekt Red hasn't yet confirmed a release date for the game but all previous Witcher titles, including both Gwent games, have been released in either May or October, making the latter a likely candidate for Project Golden Nekker's release.

Some of the cards set to feature in the game were already released into the multiplayer Gwent earlier this month, including the Golden Nekker itself, with future card drops set to arrive in July, October, and December.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.