While Microsoft had a blockbuster showcase last week with Starfield as the main feature, there were two notable absences, Microsoft’s main two action games before this new era: Halo and Gears of War. While Gears 6 is supposed to be in the works, Halo Infinite has shifted to its live service seasonal model with nebulous plans for Master Chief himself to return, as there were recent cuts to those working on campaign content at 343. In an interview with The Guardian, Phil Spencer was asked about Halo, which he says is still important,  but… “I wouldn’t say Halo is of lesser importance, but we have over 20 studios now,” Spencer said. “I’ll go back to the years where I had basically four games – Fable, Forza, Halo, Gears, the four horseman of the apocalypse. We have a lot more games now.” This was always the point of Microsoft picking up more and more studios, and big ones at that, so they could expand their reach past those limited franchises. The original Fable trilogy is ...

  Blizzard had a “Fireside Chat” about   Diablo 4   on Friday, which was not an official developer stream going over every nerf and buff coming, but they did reveal a lot of additions and quality of life changes that are coming either before, during or after season 1. Many of these are pain points in the community they are attempting to address as soon as they can, including some common questions about the upcoming season itself. Here are the highlights from the hour-ish long stream if you don’t have time to watch all that (which I did!). As announced previously, season 1 is still on track to launch in mid to late July, albeit no specific date has been announced yet. Nightmare Dungeons are not necessarily increasing mob density, but they will give more XP per monster, making them a better source of farming XP. Also, Nightmare Sigils will now teleport you directly into a dungeon rather than making you walk there, and once you finish one, you can pop another sigil and go di...