| Flame #4 · Fri Nov 13 2026 |
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| The Lanternwatch |
| 58 stories, 26 shorts and 18 guides this week. Here is what mattered. |
 | From the Lanternwatch |
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| A door Blizzard is in no hurry to open |
| From the watch, nine nights into Azeroth. |
| We hold a door for a living, so we notice how other people talk about theirs. In WoW: Forever, Blizzard's relaunch of original World of Warcraft, the Dark Portal stays shut: no level cap raise, no Burning Crusade. But on episode 7 of the official WoW: Forever Podcast, with Senior Game Designer Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield and Lore Historian Lead Sean Copeland, the developers said that "doesn't mean we won't ever go to Outland or we won't ever go to Northrend. Those places exist. They are part of the world." And then: "We've got that door that we can open later if we want to." |
| Until then, the next stories come from original WoW, like Naxxramas and the Scourge Invasion. Arthas is "still glued to his chair" in Northrend, frozen on his throne, and nobody is rushing to tip him out of it. An early BlizzCon panel once warned, "You can't handle the Lich King at level 60. He's way too strong for you." The Forever team agrees: "I don't think we can take him yet." They even pictured his Val'kyr throwing players off the platform: "I don't think we have the DPS to prevent people from getting dropped off the edge." Vex has seen our DPS. She nodded. |
| We remember Azeroth the first time. Cairn went to map the Barrens and came back a season later. Flicker carried news through Ironforge until the whole city knew it. This time the crowd is bigger: the official Chinese account counted 1,000,000 players online at once on November 7. A fan census of about 100,000 characters found the most common last name is "Forever", on 1,366 of them, and a median level of 11 the day after launch. Lag is still level 11. Paladin is the most played class at 14.4%, Warlock the least at 8.9%, so naturally Vex rolled a Warlock. |
| A shut door in the Drift usually means a world has gone cold. This one is shut because the world in front of it is too busy to leave. Outland can wait. Northrend can wait. Arthas, clearly, can wait. We will be in the Blasted Lands some evening with the lantern up, checking the hinges, in case it opens a frame early. |
| The Lanternwatch |
| The 30-second version WoW: Forever could still take players to Northrend and Outland |
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| The real story: WoW: Forever could still go to Northrend and Outland, Blizzard says, but you won't be fighting the Lich King |
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| This week in 30 seconds |
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| Slay the Spire 2's new bard, The Fool, became our biggest short ever on Instagram, a day after Mega Crit put it on the beta branch. WoW: Forever filled most of the rest of the week: a Shaman rework that finally lets Windfury stack, and a PvP faction lock players say is being dodged. These are the three most watched shorts since last Friday, counted across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. |
Slay the Spire 2 adds The Fool, its first new character 347K views | WoW: Forever nerfs Enhancement Shaman, but Windfury now stacks 156K views | WoW: Forever players say level 1 alts are unlocking Horde 69K views |
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| New shorts most days on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. |
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| The big stories |
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| GTA 6 officially goes gold, Take-Two says, and pre-orders are at "unprecedented levels" 10 days before launch "Rockstar has completed the development of GTA VI," Strauss Zelnick said on November 9. It unlocks at midnight local time on November 19, and Take-Two still won't give a pre-order number. |
| Zelda: Ocarina of Time sells 5.2 million in four days, the fastest start for any Nintendo game on Switch 2 A remake of a 1998 game is now Nintendo's fastest Switch 2 seller. Japan bought 810,000 of those copies. |
| The Game Awards will stream on Disney+ for the first time, with Disney teasing reveals from its biggest games December 10 at 7:30 p.m. ET. Disney promises "major announcements" and names no game, so Star Wars Jedi 3 is a fan expectation, not a confirmed reveal. |
| Knights of the Old Republic, Morrowind and TimeSplitters 2 are now on PC through Xbox backward compatibility 21 original Xbox games added at once, 11 of them Star Wars. Both KOTOR games also get achievements for the first time, on PC and console. |
| PS5 passes 100 million shipped, two days before its sixth birthday and a week before GTA 6 That counts consoles shipped to stores, not sold to players. About 2.4 million more and it passes the original PlayStation. |
| Fairgames is cancelled, but PlayStation says no one at Haven is losing their job A cancellation with no layoffs is rare. Haven's team moves to other PlayStation games, and PlayStation hasn't said why the heist shooter was stopped. |
| All the news |
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| Guides worth your time |
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| WoW Forever ship routes: every boat and zeppelin, plus why there are no flying mounts If Northrend can wait, the boat to Southshore can't. Every ship and zeppelin in WoW: Forever, including three new routes, which harbor goes where, and why you still can't fly. Our most searched WoW: Forever guide this week. |
| Queen's Domain Endings: All Four Endings and How to Unlock Each Our most read guide this week. All four endings come from the same final fight on one save, and the last one takes 69 silver skulls. |
| Slay the Spire 2 The Fool guide: how to unlock, Arrows, Melodies, every card and early builds Switch to the public-beta branch and play one Defect run to unlock him. Then learn the one Arrow you get to shoot. |
| Probably Stolen Hard Mode Guide: Best Opening, Specialization and Upgrades for Your First Weeks Rent starts at 200 credits and climbs 10% a week. A lean opening that keeps you ahead of it. |
| All guides |
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| A bard on Instagram |
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818,818 views on the 26 shorts we posted since last Friday, across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Threads, as of Friday evening. The Fool alone drew 313,107 of them on Instagram. |
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| Question of the week |
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| Blizzard says Northrend and Outland can wait. Would you rather WoW: Forever go there someday, or keep telling new stories in the old world? |
| Hit reply and tell us. The best answer gets featured next week. |
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| The Lanternwatch: one email, Fridays. You signed up at outputlag.com. |
