World of Warcraft on Console Feels Closer Than Ever Before

ign.com:

I watched Duke Nukem Forever emerge from its tomb, dripping with amniotic fluid, after an unprecedented 15- year development cycle. I can go play the long-gestating S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and its many spinoffs and expansions, right now on my Steam account. Final Fantasy XV finally left the assembly line at Square Enix, same with Persona 5 at Atlus, and I still go watch the Beyond Good & Evil 2 E3 trailer when I need a lift. (I'm holding out hope, Ubisoft. Always and forever.) But for my money, the greatest remaining white whale in gaming was first speculated about on Blizzard forums in 2004, right as we were getting our feet wet in the arcadia of Azeroth: "Man, do you think they'll ever port World of Warcraft to consoles?"

Those hopes never came true. The Alliance and Horde have dispatched countless evildoers across eight different expansions — cleansing this universe of all scum and villainy, to the point where players are traveling to the literal afterlifeto find someone else to fight. And yet, Blizzard's flagship MMO remained exclusive to those who wielded a PC. Yes, the company has flirted with cross-platform migration in the past; Hearthstone can live on your phone, Diablo III on your Switch, but Azeroth was never accessible through an Xbox. For whatever reason, that was a third rail in Irvine. But as Blizzard gets profoundly reshuffled with a new set of owners, maybe, for the first time in WoW's venerable history, all of that is going to change.

Have you played World of Warcraft?

We're all recovering from the news of Microsoft's planned Activision Blizzard acquisition. The implications of the deal are mind-boggling, and have us all talking in wild theoreticals. Is Master Chief going to be in the next Warzone update? Will Jim