Tempest Keep. Black Temple. Karazhan. If these names mean anything to you, you might have played The Burning Crusade, World of Warcraft’s first expansion, during its epic launch many years ago. And now, the beta for the ancient expansion is rolling out now for the expansion to hit World of Warcraft Classic. I remember the night well. Three friends and I were driving around in Michigan sleet and snow back in 2007, ready to roll our brand new Blood Elves and take Azeroth by storm.
We arrived back at our apartment setup shortly after midnight and began what would be a marathon week of leveling, looting, and pizza. Okay, not a whole lot of pizza. We were pro gamers and knew that pizza is a greasy asset that only puts you to sleep, hence interfering with peak performance, we were all about the protein-packed breakfast sandwiches. But I digress. The point here is that The Burning Crusade, launch and otherwise, was perhaps the most magical moment in World of Warcraft history. Over a decade later, no experience lives up to the varied, intimate raid experience of the haunted Karazhan for me. That’s why I ask about it in pretty much every WoW-related interview I’ve ever done.
If you’ve previously opted-in or had your account flagged, you might be able to play right now, and prepare for all the leveling action through zones like Zangamarsh and Nagrand. While you’ll probably get an official-looking email to let you know that you’re in, the best way to check is to log into your Battle.net account and see if you have a Burning Crusade classic license. That way, you’re sure to avoid any phishing or scam attempts just in case they happen. There’s nothing quite like strolling into Hellfire Peninsula and being crushed by a Fel Reaver. That’s the Burning Crusade experience I remember, oh yeah!
Did you play Burning Crusade the first time around? Are you exciting to see it again? Let us know in the comments!
Hitman 3 has a new, multi-part expansion launching next week called Seven Deadly Sins. The seven-part story kicks off with greed and serves as a larger rebranding for Hitman 3’s content roadmap going forward.
Act 1: Greed kicks off March 30 and takes players back to Dubai. True to the Act's theme, the action is all about killing targets to earn piles of gold coins and features a new Escalation mission: The Greed Enumeration. There’s no word on what this Escalation entails other than that players can carry certain items over between each of the three stages. The best perk of playing Act 1: Greed, in my opinion, is unlocking the incredibly gaudy Rapacious Suit seen in the reveal trailer. Agent 47’s shiny new threads are accented by two sin-themed items, the Greedy Little Coin and The Devil’s Cane.
Click here to watch embedded mediaSeven Deadly Sins is a premium expansion, meaning you'll have to pony up your own money, coins or otherwise, to play it. You purchase Act 1 individually for $4.99 or buy all seven packs for $29.99 ($5 cheaper than if you buy them individually). To support the expansion, IO Interactive has announced that its monthly content roadmaps will now be branded a Season of Sin. April has been christened as the Season of Greed, which kicks off alongside Act 1.
A Season of Sin will last 4-6 weeks and will be identical in content offerings to the previous roadmaps (Escalations, Elusive Targets, etc.), so the rebranding is largely in name only. IO plans to release the full roadmap for April during the first week of the month. Based on the trailer, the subsequent Seasons of Greed will take place in the following order: Pride, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, Wrath, and Envy.
Hitman 3 has already been a fun and surprisingly relaxing time, and the Season of Sin theme sounds a more interesting approach to promoting it's already exciting content rollouts. What do you think of the Seven Deadly Sins idea? Let us know down in the comments!
With the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Earth Day event coming up and even more updates on the way, a new feature has arrived just in time to make celebrating those epic creations even easier. The Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island Tour Creator is available now. It's a neat tool, one that allows for an easier way to share those impressive homesteads. For those interested, here's how it works!
After one year post-launch, your island has got to be looking pretty sweet right about now, so why not show it off. Now it's even easier to do just that with the new Island Tour Creator. It's a limited-time web service that will be good for this year and makes it easy to upload video and screenshots to help make trailers, posters, and more for your ever-evolving creation.
To get started, there's one thing you should know first. While the website is available now, it's designed specifically to work on mobile devices. When you boot it up through this link, you're going to need to scan the QR code to gain full access. Once scanned, it will open up in your mobile browser and ask you to select your language. After that, it will ask you to then link your Nintendo account to this service.
[Announcement]
— Isabelle (@animalcrossing) March 24, 2021
The #AnimalCrossing: New Horizons Island Tour Creator website is now available! Show off your island by creating fun posters and videos with content captured on your #NintendoSwitch. Here's just one example, featuring Ninten Island!https://t.co/mYxkogv0xu pic.twitter.com/ehxaS7UmQJ
Once you're logged into that, a new screen will populate, and Tom Nook will once again take center stage to walk you through the various features. You can make a poster or a trailer and enter whatever assets you'd like to make it pop. One thing to note is that you'll need to have your screenshots either on your Twitter through account linking or already pre-loaded on your smartphone. Once done, you can port those assets into the template using the Island Tour Creator for a more creative spin.
The trailer creation tool allows you to use up to three features, including Photo Op, Home, Neighbors, and Fashion. There are nine categories in total; choose your three, upload the associated screenshots, and get craftin'.
The poster creation tool is a little tricky. Some of my screenshots the program wouldn't recognize as coming from my Switch, so that's something to be aware of. Overall though, it's a nifty tool, especially given how many people have put their own creative spins on the Animal Crossing world with clever edits using their footage.