Top Gaming News August 2021

August is usually busy for video gaming with many high-profile meets & greets set up during the somewhat leisurely month. This year is a small exception as the natural rhythm of affairs is still a little disturbed but things are definitely looking up for the gaming world. Below is a quick recap of some of the most important things that happened in gaming over the past month. Some are mere rumors while others are actually confirmed events that you will probably want to know more about.

Latest US Gaming News

Blizzard released Diablo II Resurrected for a public test run during the weekend of 21-22 August. The much-anticipated remastered version of Diablo II has proven a real hit, even if it ended up gobbling quite a bit of actual hardware resources.  The beta actually drew quite a few praises with Blizzard apparently taking notice of their botched release of Warcraft 3: Reforged, the chronically underfunded remastered version of Warcraft 3. Well, in the case of Diablo II Resurrected, the game was an immediate success.

The community managed to clock hundreds of thousands of hours in just two days, with the Reddit and Blizzard forum buzzing with opinions of approval about the new game. Players were genuinely pleased with the results and deservedly so.  In the meantime, Asmongold, a popular streamer of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) found some evidence that Blizzard may actually be planning a restart of their World of Warcraft event.

It's hardly confirmed news, but people seem to have proof that Blizzard is testing raiding content for the classic version once again. Blizzard is possibly looking to restart fresh Vanilla servers because the release of TBC prompted many players to start leaving the game in the first place.  Whether this is just a rumor or confirmed news, though, it's still a significant development in the August gaming landscape. Both Diablo 2: Resurrected and World of Warcraft Vanilla are some of the most played games in the world right now.

Latest African Gaming News

Meanwhile, in Africa, gamers have had the opportunity to embrace new mobile games, and specifically League of Legends: Wild Rift and PlayerUnknown's Battleground. The region is of increasing importance to the development of many companies. Specifically, African players are looking for more competitive gaming options, collectively known as esports.  

Esports are played in team formats where the best team makes it to the top and wins a big chunk of prize money. This could be anything between $20,000 and $700,000, or even more depending on what game they are playing.  Online casino gaming in Africa, though, has been skyrocketing through the month of August, coinciding with a generally more leisurely period for the region. Players have been keen to try computer and mobile games, but many also play at top online casinos making for a truly enjoyable overall experience.

Latest Southeast Asia Gaming News

Meanwhile, gaming in Southeast Asia has been naturally booming. The region has been developing very quickly and embracing all new games from abroad. Valorant, one of Riot Games' most popular titles is now getting a mobile version specifically designed for SEA.  This means that games there will have plenty more to look forward to when it comes to competitive gaming. Right now, FPS is limited to:

• CS:GO
• PUBG
• Valorant

However, Riot Games has not announced when it might be releasing Valorant for mobile, setting an example date for 2022. Speaking of shooters, it seems like NetEase has announced a Valorant "clone."  Not only that, but they are going to name it Project M. What's so special about this naming? Well, Project M was the code name used by Riot Games to call Valorant during development. Now, NetEase is launching a rival shooter that is named after exactly the same code name.  There are many similarities between the two games, but Project M promises to go its own way. In the meantime, it has been confirmed that Project M will probably only be coming out only for mobile, reinforcing the Southeast Asia portfolio of mobile games.

As it turns out, there are plenty of different titles to try and August was definitely not a quiet month for video gaming. If anything there have been many great developments. The rest of 2021 promises to be just exciting if you are into video gaming and there are reasons to believe that this will be the case.  Whether a new big release will be announced is another thing altogether, but Call of Duty Vanguard is indeed coming out this year!