World of Warcraft is celebrating its 20-year anniversary today, November 23, 2024. Below, we talk with key developers about the journey to make the game what it is today, and the future ahead.

Two decades ago, World of Warcraft burst onto the scene and changed gaming forever. The once-niche MMORPG genre became mainstream overnight. Blizzard took ideas that came before in games like Everquest and refined, polished, and further elaborated on them until what was left would appeal to the gaming masses. The result was "WoW" becoming a household name and a cultural phenomenon in a way most video game creators can only dream of, with millions and millions of players willing to pay a $15-a-month subscription to this day for the privilege of continuing their digital adventures in the fantasy world of Azeroth.

It's hardly a surprise the WoW that first launched 20 years ago on November 23, 2004, while technically still the same game, is vastly different to the current version of the MMO players play today. Its most recent expansion alone, The War Within, added account-wide progression and a new endgame activity for solo players, two ideas that would have been unheard of even a decade ago but which have been received with near-universal praise from the game's community.

If you're shopping for a Super Mario fan this holiday, Amazon and Target have great deals on popular talking Mario action figures and posable plushies for Black Friday. Amazon also has a nice limited-time discount on an exclusive four-pack of Mario Kart Diecast Hot Wheels cars as well as price cuts on two track sets.

It's-A Me, Mario Talking Action Figure

$18 (was $50)

Made by Jakks Pacific, this officially licensed 12-inch Mario figure carries a $50 list price, but Amazon and Target have it for only $18 for Black Friday 2024. The massive 64% discount is the best we've seen for this-a Mario figure.

It's-A Me, Mario, the talking action figure has over 30 built-in sound effects and phrases, 15 points of articulation. Naturally, Mario will say things like "Woo-hoo" and "It's-A Me, Mario," because he wants to make sure you never forget his name. Mario also knows five songs, which can be played by posing his arms in specific spots and pressing his hat.

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Super Mario Bros. Movie Posable Plush

$18 (was $30)

Target also has a posable, 15-inch Super Mario plush for $18 (was $30). This one is based on Mario's appearance in the movie and is exclusive to Target.

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Hot Wheels Mario Kart Diecast 4-Pack

$17 (was $24)

Amazon has an exclusive four-pack of Hot Wheels Mario Kart Diecast cars for only $17 as part of its Black Friday sale. This deal is already over 50% claimed, so don't wait too long to grab it. The four-pack comes with Mario, Bowser, Luigi, and Yoshi.

Best Buy has four-packs of Mario Kart Hot Wheels available for $17 as well, but there are four different sets, and you won't know which one you're getting until it arrives. You could eliminate the element of chance by ordering online and picking it up at your local Best Buy store.

Mario Kart Hot Wheels are compatible with traditional Hot Wheels tracks. There are even a couple of Super Mario-themed sets on sale for Black Friday. You can get the Jungle Kingdom Raceway from the Super Mario Bros. Movie for $23.69 (was $40) and the Piranha Plant Slide playset for $18.70 (was $24).

• Hot Wheels Mario Kart Diecast 4-Pack (Amazon Exclusive) -- $17 ($24)
• Hot Wheels Mario Kart Diecast 4-Pack (Best Buy) -- $17 ($24)
• Hot Wheels Mario Kart - Jungle Kingdom Raceway Track -- $23.69 ($40)
• Hot Wheels Mario Kart - Piranha Plant Slide Track -- $18.70 ($24)

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Black Friday 2024 Sale at Amazon

The holiday sales event runs through November 29.

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Lego Super Mario: NES and CRT TV Set

$216 (was $270) for Lego Insiders

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The Lego Nintendo Entertainment System is on sale for 20% off at the Lego Store as part of the retailer's pre-Black Friday Insiders Weekend. It's one of numerous rarely discounted sets available for 20% off for Lego Insiders. With the discount, the Lego NES drops from $270 to only $216. This matches the best price we've seen for the charming 2,646-piece set since its debut in 2020.

Call of Duty's competitive Ranked Play arrived to Black Ops 6 multiplayer earlier this week, and the mode is already plagued with cheaters. Activision has now addressed the frustration of the playerbase in regards to all the hackers in Ranked Play, and fixes are in the works to improve the game's anti-cheat.

Call of Duty's Ricochet anti-cheat is active in Black Ops 6 and Warzone, but unsavory players were still managing to flood into Ranked Play mode. Activision says this is partially due to an outage that was identified as lowering Ricochet's efficiency of the AI systems used for cheat detection.

The publisher reveals that the anti-cheat team is working behind the scenes to improve the game's hacking situation. The outage has been fixed, and other measures are being taken to combat the cheating. This includes "aggressive targeting of suspicious accounts" and accelerating the replay investigations to review suspicious players.

Those who have been playing Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl on Xbox have been experiencing some strange issues on their controllers, but the developer is working on a fix right now.

According to Windows Central, Stalker 2 sets the controller's gamepad deadzones to zero on Xbox. As a result, this means that even the slightest nudge on the controller's stick will move the player while being in the game.

Developer GSC World has confirmed that it is already working on the issue, but there's no announced timeline on when an update will arrive. Stalker 2 is littered with technical issues and bugs, and the developer said that it is committed to stamping them out.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launched with two brand-new Zombies maps, but a third map is arriving with a midseason update. Treyarch has now revealed the upcoming Citadelle des Morts map releases in less than two weeks. Here is everything we know so far about the latest Zombies map.

The Season 1 roadmap confirmed that Citadelle des Morts would arrive sometime midseason, and now a recent post from Treyarch revealed the map arrives on December 5. Activision hasn't confirmed a date for Call of Duty's midseason "Reloaded" update, but it's possible this map will arrive with the rest of Season 1's content for Black Ops 6 and Warzone.

Citadelle des Morts is described as a new round-based map set at a massive castle located in Europe. The map's narrative picks up after the events of the Terminus Easter-egg quest. Additionally, Treyarch has confirmed the main story quest for Citadelle des Morts will go live simultaneously with the map's launch.

According to a new report, Microsoft has created a "new committee" in its Activision division that will make key decisions about the future of the Call of Duty brand. According to TheGhostOfHope, who has accurately reported on unannounced Call of Duty developments in the past, Microsoft's new committee will listen to suggestions from Call of Duty studios like Treyarch and Infinity Ward, but ultimately the committee will decide "features" and "systems" to come in future games.

Hope went on to say whether or not a feature like Omnimovement continues beyond Black Ops 6 will be decided by committee, not by any one studio. The insider went on to say a Call of Duty developers are being told "not to innovate" in "UI, Prestige, and certain gameplay features." Instead, studios are being asked to come up with new directions for things like "maps, modes, and storytelling."

"That is where they want the creativity to come from," Hope said.

Hunting for a video game deal this Black Friday? You don't have to wait until Black Friday itself, as Amazon has launched its deals early, and this includes nice discounts on a lot of video games. Sega's RPG Unicorn Overlord is discounted for the shopping bonanza, with the game selling for just $30. That's half off its normal $60 price point.

Prime members get free shipping, meaning if you order today, you could start playing over the weekend. The deal is good for the Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X versions of the game.

Unicorn Overlord, which was developed by Vanillaware, originally launched this past March and scored an 8/10 from GameSpot. We said the game "impresses with gorgeous visuals and engrossing strategy action." The story follows an exiled prince who raises allies to liberate the world from evil forces.

Godzilla could emerge in a brand-new location soon: Fortnite. A recent report states the King of the Monsters will be part of a new collaboration soon for the mega-popular game, along with the MonsterVerse as a whole.

Well-known Fortnite leaker Shiina stated on X that they've confirmed "Godzilla is coming to Fortnite," corroborating an initial post by SamLeaks that the MonsterVerse collaboration will be seen in Rocket League, too. It's unknown exactly what the possible crossover could entail. Godzilla could be a skin--along with King Kong, for example--but maybe the kaiju actually stomps across the map as a random encounter each match.

If anything, Godzilla would most likely be a part of the upcoming Fortnite Chapter 6, which is planned to start December 1. Before then, Fortnite will hold a Chapter 5 and Remix Finale event that features Snoop Dogg, Ice Spice, and Juice WRLD. Earlier this week, Epic Games talked about the decision to bring Juice WRLD to Fortnite, since the musician died in 2019.

A Sniper Elite battle-royale spin-off announced just three months ago has reportedly been canceled after losing funding from Chinese gaming giant Tencent.

The news comes via Insider Gaming, which didn't give a concrete reason for why Tencent was backing out of the project but said may be related to the high-profile failure of Sony's live-service FPS Concord. Insider Gaming reports the "higher-ups" at Sniper Elite developer Rebellion implied during meetings with staff that Tencent may have become "skittish" about live-service projects after Concord's disastrous launch: a misfire that ultimately led to its developer, Firewalk Studios, shutting down.

Code-named Project Archipelago but internally referred to as Sniper Island, the battle royale would have had sniper teams of three battling to become the last squad standing as part of what Rebellion labeled as a "new IP." Early alpha playtests for the game happened in August, shortly after the game was announced.

The Black Friday shopping season is in full swing, and Amazon has numerous great deals on video games. One such offer is a sweet discount on Persona 3 Reload. The Atlus RPG is currently available on Amazon for only $25, which is an amazing discount off its normal $70 price point.

Persona 3 Reload originally launched in February 2024, so it's been out a while, but if you've been looking to score a deal, this is the best we've seen so far. The deal only applies to the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game.

Persona 3 Reload is a remake of 2006's Persona 3. GameSpot's Persona 3 Reload review scored it a 9/10 and said it's the greatest way to experience Persona 3's story.

Fanatical's Black Friday Sale is now live, offering huge discounts on hundreds of PC games. The vast majority of these are sold as Steam keys, and spending over $12 gets you a random bonus such as a free game or discount coupon. You'll also want to check back daily to see what new flash deals are live, as these are among the best price cuts of Black Friday. At the time of writing, notable flash deals include Starfield for $36 (was $70) and Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance Deluxe Edition for $43 (was $70).

Though it was just released last month, the remake of Silent Hill 2 is now on sale for $42 (was $70). The horrifying game features big improvements over its predecessor, including support for ray tracing, larger environments to explore, upgraded combat gameplay, and a new over-the-shoulder camera perspective. So whether you played the original or are a newcomer to the iconic franchise, this is the best way to play in 2024.

There have been some unique throwback games over the years, but SpreadCheat looks like it's going to be in a category all of its own. Games People Play and Rubarb are developing the upcoming puzzle title, which invites the player to use a Excel-like program to commit a little financial fraud in the name of hitting your company's fiscal targets.

Although Games People Play describes SpreadCheat as capturing "a retro Windows 3.11 setting," the actual character models and backgrounds look like mid-'80s computer graphics. The player's character is a recently hired employee who has to cook the books, so to speak. Essentially, players have to create and manipulate spreadsheet data so it looks like the company is hitting its financial goals. In the real world, this would all be wildly illegal. But in the context of the game, it's played for laughs. One thing we're not clear about is whether the player can be caught and punished for their financial malfeasance by the authorities.

The pseudo-Excel program used in the game features its own version of Microsoft's Clippy, the annoying virtual Office assistant that would pop up whenever users would forget to turn it off. Perhaps the fake Clippy in this game will actually be useful, which would be a nice change.

A bunch of PlayStation Studios games are on sale for Black Friday, but if you're looking for one that has the heart and charm of an old-school platformer, Astro Bot is an easy recommendation. It's on sale for the first time at multiple retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy. Normally $60, Astro Bot is up for grabs for $50 for a limited time.

Astro Bot

$50 (was $60)

If you missed it when it first launched in September, Astro Bot is a charming adventure game that mixes beautifully designed levels with fun platforming gameplay. For anyone who has owned multiple generations of gaming hardware--specifically, PlayStation consoles--Astro Bot is also effortlessly charming as it features hundreds of little bots modeled after characters from some of the best video games of all time, like Bloodborne, Legacy of Kain, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

"Team Asobi cements itself as an essential PlayStation studio with an imaginative platformer for the ages," Mark Delaney wrote in GameSpot's Astro Bot review.

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For a few more PS5 game discounts, you can also check out big discounts on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, The The Last of Us Part I, and Horizon Forbidden West.

Take a look at all of the best deals on PS5 exclusives below. And for even more discounts, check out our roundup of the best Black Friday deals for PS5, which includes steep discounts on DualSense Controllers, Pulse Explore Wireless Earbuds, PSVR 2 bundles, and more.

Blizzard is holding another PTR (Public Test Realm) for Diablo 4, testing some of the new features and content that will be arriving in Season 7 next year. Here's everything Diablo 4 players on PC will be able to preview during the 2.1 update test period, which will run December 3-10.

One of the major new features previewed in the 2.1 PTR is the Armory, a new feature that will allow players to swap between different builds easily. The Armory lets you save, load, and name your favorite character builds, with five different built slots allotted per character. Loadouts will save a character's equipped items, Paragon Board and Glyphs, skill selections, and class mechanic. Switching between them will display the relevant details at a glance.

2.1 will also let players master Witchcraft, with three new schools of Hawezar sorcery to learn. These include Eldritch, which focuses on destructive energies and polymorphy; Psyche, a defensive magic based on mind and spirit; and Growth & Decay, a type of magic based on the dichotomy of healing and harming.

Star Wars Outlaws is starting a new chapter this week with the launch of the game's first story DLC, Wild Card. To mark the occasion, Ubisoft has dropped a launch trailer that explains how Kay Vess and her friends get drawn into an adventure alongside the legendary Lando Calrissian. But it looks like they'll be on opposite sides at the start.

An outlaw's reputation means everything in the underworld, which is how the Empire is able to successfully blackmail Kay into working for them on this mission. If she refuses, the Empire will simply let it be known that Kay is one of their operatives and the various syndicates will mark her for death. To keep the Empire off of her back, Kay also has to win a high-stakes Sabacc tournament against some of the game's best players--who may also be flagrant cheaters like Lando.

Naturally, this arrangement is destined to go sideways as Lando and Kay escape on her ship. From there, we're not sure where the story is going, but it's an encouraging way to tease the DLC. Ubisoft has also dropped a massive update for the game that--among other things--does away with forced stealth missions. From now on, Kay can shoot her way out of some tight spots without failing her mission. Most of the major gameplay changes are laid out in the new video below.

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto VI took home the "Most Wanted Game" award at the Golden Joysticks this week, and in an acceptance speech, a developer teased "absolutely mind-blowing things" to come from the game.

"There's an incredible amount of people doing amazing things on Grand Theft Auto 6. Absolutely mind-blowing things so it's a real honor to be able to come up here and accept this award on everyone's behalf," the developer said (via Rockstar Intel).

GTA 6 winning the award for most-anticipated upcoming game is no surprise at all given the incredible amount of hype surrounding the game, which is set for release in Fall 2025. GTA 6 is also nominated for the Most Anticipated award at December's The Game Awards.

PlayStation VR 2: Horizon Call of the Mountain Bundle

$350 (was $600)

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PlayStation VR 2

$350 (was $550)

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The PlayStation VR 2 is a great virtual reality headset with a steep asking price. But during PlayStation's Black Friday sale, which is live now at major retailers, the PSVR 2 is a great VR headset with a very enticing asking price. For a limited time, you can get the PSVR 2 for only $350. Better yet, the deal applies to both the standalone headset and the Horizon Call of the Mountain PSVR 2 bundle. The bundle normally costs $600, so you're saving a whopping $250.

• PlayStation VR 2 Horizon Call of The Mountain Bundle -- $350 ($600)
• PlayStation VR 2 -- $350 ($550)
• PS5 Slim Console -- $425 ($500)
• PS5 Slim: Fortnite Cobalt Star Edition -- $425 ($500)
• PS5 Slim Digital: Fortnite Cobalt Star Edition -- $375 ($450)
• PS5 Digital Edition with NBA 2K25 -- $375 ($500)
• PS5 Digital Edition Console -- $375 ($450)

If you don't own a PS5 yet, PlayStation's Black Friday sale includes big discounts on the PS5 Slim and PS5 Slim Digital. But you don't actually need a PS5 console to play games on PSVR 2. A few months back, PlayStation released a $60 adapter for PC that unlocked support for SteamVR. If you have a powerful enough gaming rig, the PSVR 2 is even more of a bargain as a PC VR headset.

PlayStation VR 2: Horizon Call of the Mountain Bundle

$350 (was $600)

Equipped with two 2000 x 2040 OLED displays, 4K HDR visuals, 3D Audio, and intelligent eye tracking, the PSVR 2 is a powerful virtual reality headset. The headset and the included pair of Sense controllers offer immersive haptic feedback.

As mentioned, the Horizon Call of the Mountain Bundle is the same price as the standalone headset, so there's no reason to not get the bundle. Unless, of course, you don't like getting $60 games for free. Call of the Mountain is one of the most visually impressive games on the platform.

We wouldn't be surprised if this bundle sells out fast, so you should move fast if interested.

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PlayStation VR 2

$350 (was $550)

That said, if the bundle sells out, getting the PSVR 2 on its own for $350 is still an awesome deal.

Virtual reality is more immersive with headphones or earbuds, but it's not always easy to find a comfy pair for gaming in VR. You shouldn't have that problem with PlayStation's Pulse audio gear, as both the headset and earbuds are comfortable to use while wearing the headset. The Pulse Explore Wireless Earbuds are discounted to $170 (was $200) for Black Friday. This is the first big discount on PlayStation's first pair of wireless earbuds. You can also save $20 on the over-ear Pulse Elite Wireless Headset, which drops the price to only $130 (was $150).

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More Black Friday PlayStation Deals

DualSense Controllers

Save $20 on all styles

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PlayStation's Black Friday sale also includes a long list of PS5 accessory and video game deals, making this a great time to check out all of PlayStation's best first-party games for cheap. From discounted DualSense controllers to low prices on games like God of War Ragnarok and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, here’s a look at other great Black Friday PlayStation deals. Once you’re done browsing all these offers, head over to our Black Friday Hub for deals on Lego sets, board games, video games, and more.

DualSense Controllers

Save $20 on all styles

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PlayStation's DualSense Wireless Controllers haven't received official discounts all year, but Black Friday is here to save your wallet. The colorful range of DualSense Controllers are on sale for $55-$60 each at multiple major retailers. PlayStation recently raised the price of its controllers to $75-$80, so you're saving $20 on each model. If you're shopping for a PlayStation 5 or PC gamer and have no idea what to buy, you really can't go wrong with an extra controller, especially one that is very rarely discounted and is available in some very cool colors.

Even the Chroma Collection models that launched earlier this month are included in the sale. You can grab the eye-catching Chroma Indigo and Chroma Pearl DualSense Controllers for $60 each.

PS5 DualSense Controller Deals at Amazon