Diablo IV’s much-awaited season 1 update will release July 20, nearly a month-and-a-half since the game debuted to rave reviews. Dubbed ‘Season of the Malignant,’ the update was shown off during a developer live stream, held early Friday, detailing new quests, items, and further focus on its battle pass. As the title suggests, the upcoming season introduces a brand-new questline where the realm of Sanctuary is slowly getting corrupted by a plague, turning all living things into Malignant Monsters with new powers. The chapter is set after Diablo 4’s main campaign where you bested Lilith, Daughter of Hatred, to rid Sanctuary of evil, and serves as a side story within the open world. The season starts at 10:30pm IST/ 10am PT.

As a festering curse widens its reach across Diablo IV’s Sanctuary, the player will be summoned back to Kyovashad at level 1 to meet a new character Cormand, a former priest from the Cathedral of Light, who assigns us the new task of ripping the infected hearts out the Malignant creatures and using them to raise our power. Elite monsters you find in the world have a chance of spawning as a Malignant version, who upon defeat, drops an exposed Malignant Heart. You can interact with this item to start a ritual that spawns an even more powerful version of the elite enemy, surrounded by a group of corrupted mobs. Once you kill that — yeah, it’s double the work — you earn a Caged Heart, which essentially functions like a gem that can be slotted into rings or amulets to tremendously boost your power. It’s a way for you to create “stupid, new broken builds” that the developers hope are rightfully balanced.

Diablo IV Review

During Diablo IV’s season 1, all ring and amulet drops will come with coloured sockets — red, blue, or yellow — that will only accept similarly coloured hearts’ powers. You cannot pair a red heart in a blue socket, as the game directs players to look for specific colours of items. Maybe if you’re lucky enough on your hunt, you will uncover a mysterious fourth colour of heart, which can be socketed onto any jewellery. There are a total of 32 Malignant Heart powers to collect, albeit you will run into even stronger versions of those as you keep playing the game. Any old, now useless hearts can then be broken down into crafting material that can be used to create Invokers. These can be used once you finish the Diablo IV season 1 campaign, at a Malignant Tunnel, where you can hunt for guaranteed hearts. Remember: Malignant Hearts are quite rare when looking for in the overworld.

The season 1 journey will be spread across seven chapters, each with its own set of objectives and rewards, by way of new items and Favor. The latter is crucial to progressing Diablo 4’s battle pass by helping you unlock rewards — the more Favor you earn, the more tiers you unlock. It is also worth mentioning that there are two kinds of battle passes here — a free tier where everyone can earn in-game boosts and a paid Premium Tier, where the rewards are all cosmetics. Upon launch, Diablo IV merely featured an in-game shop that simply contained skins, with the game never luring you to buy any of them. Hopefully, the trend continues as Blizzard Entertainment focuses on expanding the game in the years to come. The studio already has two expansions in active development.

Diablo IV is out on PC (via Battle.net), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.

Hogwarts Legacy, the RPG set within the Potterverse, sold over 22 million copies in 2023. Speaking to Variety, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad claimed that it was the best-selling game of the said year and that about 2 million of those sales were made during the Christmas holiday season, presumably owing to heavy discounts. Despite his statement, several developers in the industry, including Larian Studios (Baldur’s Gate 3) and Activision (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3) have yet to reveal the latest sales numbers; so, take the claims with a grain of salt.

“It brought Harry Potter to life in a new way for gamers where they could be themselves in this world, in this story,” Haddad said in the interview. “And that’s what the team at Avalanche set out to do when they were developing the game and I think that’s really why it resonated so well and remains the best-selling game of the year in the entire industry worldwide.” Going forward, WB will continue betting on well-established franchises and using its namesake to generate better sales. In fact, CEO David Zaslav touched upon this in November, with plans to heavily veer into a live service model that would transform the company’s biggest names into long-term products, dropping new content regularly and deep monetisation. This also includes free-to-play mobile games and MultiVersus, the fighting game featuring characters from WB properties, which is expected to undergo a full launch this year.

Launched in February 2023, Hogwarts Legacy got off to a great start, with players worldwide discovering secrets, while developer Avalanche enjoyed staggering sales, partly bolstered by the drama revolving around the boycott of author J.K. Rowling. Although the interest gradually decreased in the following months — the game failed to earn a single nomination at The Game Awards 2023 — WB still seems hellbent on expanding its Harry Potter portfolio with its Quidditch Champions game, which underwent a closed playtest last year. The magical sport was not included in Hogwarts Legacy, so it would be interesting to see how it plays out as a multiplayer entry. Could the company try to make it a live service affair? Only time will tell. Regardless, there are plans for more Harry Potter spin-off games.

So far, wizards around the world have brewed 819 million potions, harvested 1.3 billion magical plants, bested 4.9 billion dark wizards in combat, and rescued 593 million fantastical beasts in Hogwarts Legacy. As per Haddad, another key area of success was NetherRealm Studios’ latest fighting game Mortal Kombat 1, which he alluded to have garnered more players than any other entry in the fighter franchise in its ‘30-plus year history.’ Selling 3 million copies as of November, the fighting game featured some aggressive microtransactions — something gamers have always shown a dislike for. WB Games’ upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League also falls under the live service umbrella, causing longtime fans of developer Rocksteady to be sceptical of it.

Hogwarts Legacy is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch.

Red Magic 10 Pro+ and Red Magic 10 Pro were launched in China as the latest gaming-focused smartphones from the ZTE sub-brand Nubia. Both models have similar internals, aside from the battery and charging speeds. They run on a Snapdragon 8 Elite “Extreme Edition” version paired with up to 24GB of RAM and 1TB of internal storage. Both handsets sport a 1.5K resolution display and feature a triple rear camera setup. The Red Magic 10 Pro+ has a 7,050mAh battery with support for 120W fast charging, while the Red Magic 10 Pro has a smaller 6,500mAh battery that can be charged at 80W.

Red Magic 10 Pro+, Red Magic 10 Pro Price and Availability

RedMagic 10 Pro+ pricing starts at CNY 5,999 (roughly Rs. 72,000) for the 16GB + 512GB version, and it is available in a Dark Knight colourway. The Deuterium Front Transparent Dark Night and Silver Wing colour variants (translated from Chinese) are priced at CNY 6,299 (roughly Rs. 74,000) for the same RAM and storage configuration. The 24GB + 1TB variant is priced at CNY 7,499 (roughly Rs. 88,000).

The special edition Red Magic 10 Pro Golden Saga model with 24GB and 1TB of storage and a golden finish is priced at CNY 9,499 (roughly Rs. 1,11,000).

Meanwhile, the Red Magic 10 Pro price starts at CNY 4,999 (roughly Rs. 58,000) for the 12GB + 256GB model. It is priced at CNY 5,499 (roughly Rs. 64,000) for the 12GB + 512GB version. It also comes in Dark Knight, Deuterium Front Transparent Dark Night and Transparent Silver Wing colours.

Both models are currently up for pre-orders in China and deliveries are slated to begin on November 18.

Red Magic 10 Pro+, Red Magic 10 Pro Specifications

The dual-SIM (Nano) Red Magic 10 Pro+ and Red Magic 10 Pro runs on Android 15-based Redmagic AI OS 10.0 and sports a 6.8-inch 1.5K(1,216×2,688 pixels) BOE Q9+ AMOLED display with up to 144Hz refresh rate, a 960Hz touch sampling rate, up to 2,000nits peak brightness, and 2,592Hz PWM dimming. The new handsets run on the Snapdragon 8 Elite ‘Extreme Edition’, paired with up to 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

RedMagic 10 Pro
Photo Credit: Nubia

For optics, the Red Magic 10 Pro+ and Red Magic 10 Pro feature a triple rear camera setup, comprising a 50-megapixel OmniVision OV50E40 sensor, a 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor and a 2-megapixel macro sensor. Selfies and video calls are handled by a 16-megapixel under-display front-facing camera.

The Red Magic 10 Pro series is equipped with the company’s ICE X cooling technology that comprises a 5,200 sq mm superconducting copper foil and has a 12,000 sq mm 3D vapour chamber for thermal management. Both handsets have a dual X-axis linear motor for haptics. Connectivity options on the smartphones include 5G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm audio jack. They have 520Hz gaming shoulder keys, three microphones and stereo speakers.

Nubia has equipped the Red Magic 10 Pro+ with a 7,050mAh battery that supports 80W fast charging, while the Red Magic 10 Pro has a 6,500mAh battery with 120W charging support.