Gaming
World of Warcraft Sets a Record as Vice City Counts Down
This is the biggest play week of the year, and the games themselves are only half the story. World of Warcraft just set the biggest launch record in its history. Grand Theft Auto 6 sits eleven days from release with its trophy list already circulating. Nintendo is testing fresh ways to play on Switch 2, and the creator of Super Smash Bros. is talking openly about AI and retirement in the same breath. Every story this week is about who shapes the experience, the studio, the platform, or the players themselves.
World of Warcraft Forever launched on November 4 as a reimagined version of the original 2004 Azeroth, with a level 60 cap and thousands of alternative quests, and Blizzard confirmed on November 6 that it set the biggest launch in World of Warcraft history by peak concurrent players, plus the highest number of returning players the series has ever recorded. Executive producer Holly Longdale added a third record on November 7, the most new players for a World of Warcraft launch in 15 years. The launch ran smooth, with short queues and low lag, on 3,924 virtual machines carrying 251,136 gigabytes of memory and 70,480 processor cores, tuned with data from the largest beta in franchise history, where players created 8,862,354 characters. Blizzard shared the ranking and kept the exact global count private, and the hard numbers that did surface tell their own story. In China, publisher NetEase said Forever passed 1 million concurrent players, a regional record, and the World of Warcraft category peaked at 1,119,734 viewers on Twitch on launch day, its highest figure since Classic launched in 2019.
Vice City counts down next. Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, with preloading opening worldwide on November 10, and reports this week put its trophy and achievement list at 55, with 54 regular entries plus one platinum trophy on PlayStation and a top tier achievement on Xbox. The number comes from dataminer TexFunz2 and a matching PlayStation side count, and Rockstar has stayed quiet on the number, so the 55 stays a report until the official lists arrive. The comparison still frames the scale. Grand Theft Auto 5 launched with 51 trophies and Red Dead Redemption 2 launched with 52, so a 55 entry list would top both of Rockstar's previous launches on day one. The names stay under wraps for now, which keeps the unlocks a surprise, and the official lists will land by launch at the latest.
Nintendo spent the week looking forward, too. Shinya Takahashi said the company is testing fresh ways to play on Switch 2, with teams starting from fun ideas and then finding the hardware to match. Masahiro Sakurai, the creator behind Super Smash Bros., spoke at a Famitsu anniversary event about retirement, saying he still has work and can meet demand while weighing his future, and he spoke just as plainly about generative AI. He uses zero generative AI himself, including for brainstorming, and he added that ignoring it entirely carries its own price. The cloud kept pace as well. Nvidia named 24 games for GeForce NOW in November, eight in the first week and 16 across the rest of the month, with World of Warcraft Forever, Cyberpunk 2077, and Baldur's Gate 3 on the list, plus two Ubisoft downloadable content releases and a graphics update for Hogwarts Legacy.
For players, the week rewards attention in both directions. The record launch shows a 22 year old world can still pull the biggest crowd in its history when the studio rebuilds it with care, and the countdown to Vice City shows a single release can still bend the whole calendar around it. The Nintendo and Sakurai stories point the same way, toward play shaped by curiosity instead of habit. Keep an eye on November 10, when preloading opens and the first official trophy lists should surface, and on the live servers, where Forever's real test is the weeks after launch, when the crowds settle and the world has to hold them.
Quick answers
What is this story about?
This is the biggest play week of the year, and the games themselves are only half the story. World of Warcraft just set the biggest launch record in its history. Grand Theft Auto 6 sits eleven days from release with its trophy list already circulating. Nintendo is testing fresh ways to play on Switch 2, and the creator of Super Smash Bros. is talking openly about AI and retirement in the same breath. Every story this week is about who shapes the experience, the studio, the platform, or the players themselves.
Why does this story matter?
For players, the week rewards attention in both directions. The record launch shows a 22 year old world can still pull the biggest crowd in its history when the studio rebuilds it with care, and the countdown to Vice City shows a single release can still bend the whole calendar around it. The Nintendo and Sakurai stories point the same way, toward play shaped by curiosity instead of habit. Keep an eye on November 10, when preloading opens and the first official trophy lists should surface, and on the live servers, where Forever's real test is the weeks after launch, when the crowds settle and the world has to hold them.
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