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If you were paying attention to audience reactions to God of War Laufey, you likely noticed the ever-predictable objections to a female-led spin-off. You know the type to complain, and they're as laughably pathetic as ever. Deborah Ann Woll, the voice of our eponymous protagonist, was asked for her take, and she's simply unbothered.

While she was signing at Florida Supercon, a fan asked Woll about misogynistic backlash, recording her response for TikTok. "I mean, genuinely, I thought I was going to be much more affected by it," she explained.

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"One, I'm not on social media, so that helps," she continues. "And two, I don't know, I feel totally unbothered because I just know it's great. Like, it’s okay if it’s not your cup of tea, but in no universe is it bad."

We don't have much to go on at present, but what's available about God of War Laufey paints a strong picture. For a start, the game is developed by Sony Santa Monica, the same studio behind the mainline God of War series. This more or less guarantees the same flowing, weighty combat, gorgeous visuals, and solid writing of the last two Kratos-led, triple-A releases.

And then we have Laufey herself, who'll be a breath of fresh air compared to the literal decades we've had of grumpy, old Kratos and his blades. The concept of God of War Laufey being a narrative parallel to the first game, as Laufey explores the afterlife, assisting her child and widowed partner, is also a strong one, and I'm fully expecting to get choked up while playing and mutilating whatever demons get in my way.

Is the gelatinous cube kind of weird? Sure. But in context, it'll probably be fine. It's not the first time we've all been sold on a simple cube in a major video game, is it?

Sony Santa Monica confirms "God of War Laufey will be available on disc" despite PlayStation's war on physical.

Despite the surge in Overwatch players since Blizzard's decision to drop the 2 and take the hero shooter in a new direction earlier this year, the noise around its MOBA-inspired Stadium mode has died down. And so has its popularity, which has prompted a halt in development plans according to a new blog post by game director Aaron Keller.

Keller provided daily player counts for each mode as of June 28. The data shows that around 54% of players queue up for 5v5 unranked, while only 3% of them head into unranked or ranked Stadium. Even the 6v6 modes are more popular.

Because of this, Blizzard has decided to stop adding new heroes and maps to Stadium. Keller says "we'll continue supporting Stadium with seasonal balance updates, rank resets, and rewards," but the team of developers previously focused on it will be moving on to other projects.

Stadium is basically an over-the-top version of Overwatch where you create MOBA-style builds with items and powers that transform your hero's abilities, like shrinking Ashe's robot sidekick B.O.B. into a mini killing machine. People ate it up in the first few weeks it was out, making it one of Overwatch's most-played modes. But with only a portion of the game's roster available to play, it started to fall behind on updates as Blizzard began rapidly releasing new heroes for the rest of the game. Season 1's Jetpack Cat was the last hero to be Stadium-ified.

Although the most recent midseason patch was filled with plenty of balance changes for Stadium, it seems like the effort it takes to translate new heroes and maps to the mode is too much for Blizzard to juggle alongside the rest of the game. Part of me is glad to see that Blizzard won't be deleting Stadium outright, but another part of me is surprised that it's already effectively over. I'll be curious to see how substantial future balance changes will look if the team focused on it has largely moved on.

The news was tucked into a blog post about two upcoming experimental 6v6 modes Blizzard will be testing soon. From July 16 through July 19, Quick Play will turn into a "Flex Queue" where every team will have one tank, three damage dealers, and two supports. At any point in the match, however, a single damage dealer will be able to swap to a tank hero. Keller says Flex Queue will help improve queue times and add a little more strategy compared to the regular 2-2-2 team compositions.

The second test will run from July 28 to August 3 and will use the same Flex Queue format but only when the matchmaking system fails to find two tank players. The goal with this so-called "Dynamic Queue" will be to see how people handle shorter queue times in exchange for varying team compositions. Right now, queuing up for multiple roles tends to just make you a tank because it's the least popular. This is supposed to alleviate that a bit.

Keller says both tests are to gather data about various things and won't "necessarily mean that we're going to be changing the main format of the game." He said they could lead to tweaks to regular modes or entirely new Arcade modes. "Like with any good experiment, we won't know the results until we complete all the steps."

Although it certainly wasn't pitched as one, it seems like Stadium will go down as one of the many experiments Overwatch has conducted in the last few years. Overwatch's perks system—which lets you choose two of four ability modifiers mid-match—was inspired by it and changed the game for the better. Stadium might be more or less over, but it probably won't be be the last time we see pieces of it show up in the rest of the game.