[GameSpot] - WoW April Fools' Day Patch Notes Include Some Cheeky Elden Ring References

[343iBot]

Blizzard has released fake April Fools' Day patch notes for World of Warcraft patch 2.4, Beyond the End of Infinity: The Final Everything Beginning Forever, and hidden in the sea of jokes are more than a few references to Elden Ring.

The Elden Ring jokes are filed under the Shaman class portion of the patch notes, with Blizzard writing that Shamans can now travel to a new plane of existence between Azeroth and the Elemental planes--the realms "Betwixt." Traveling to this new realm will put Shamans into a "Blemished" state, where if they die they will lose all their glyphs and have to retrieve them upon death.

While in the realms Betwixt, all Shaman summons are replaced by a Spirit Jellyfish, while the Shaman's Spirit Wolf form will now be referred to as "dog." Blizzard notes that the Realms Betwixt are full of mystery, one that fellow Shamans can help each other to uncover by leaving messages that "would never mislead or deceive you in any way."

Of course, these are all jokes inspired by From Software's critically-acclaimed RPG, riffing on everything from Elden Ring's rune currency to players constantly referring to every animal in Elden Ring as "dog" via the game's messaging system.

While the Elden Ring jokes definitely stand out, there's plenty of other puns to be found in Blizzard's April Fool's Day patch notes. The name of the fake patch itself is in reference to the name of the recently released Eternity's End update.

Other jokes include WoW Classic getting a new season of "Intermittent Fasting" where food buffs can only be gained in the afternoon. There's also a new class coming to the game, the "Tinker Leaker." It's a prediction-focused class that specializes in near-term guarantees and distant assurances on the future of WoW itself, and whose name and appearance change at the end of each encounter so that future "predictions" can be cast with increased persuasiveness. With the next WoW expansion reveal on the horizon, Reddit and various forums have been abuzz in recent months with supposed insider information on the future of the game posted by supposed "leakers," which seems to have led to Blizzard having a bit of fun with the community with this new leak-focused class.

Blizzard also takes the time to introduce new "micro-professions" like Beekeeping, Gastronomy, Microbrewing, as well as changes that reference recent films like Don't Look Up and Turning Red. Death Knights will now just be Knights, bag sizes have been reduced by 80%, Tauren, Worgen, and Draenei can now be Demon Hunters, and Warriors are getting a major class redesign to be more music-focused. The jokes go on and on.

While none of these fake additions to WoW are playable, there are plenty of April Fools' Day gags that are more tangible. Last year's Among Us April Fools' Day joke has become a reality, and Minecraft's playable "One Block at a Time" update makes the game a little simpler by removing most of its features.

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