Tin foil hats on, everyone. Several clues point to a new class dropping in Diablo 4 right after next week's Game Awards, where Blizzard is expected to announce the next expansion.

I wouldn't be convinced of this if it weren't for a preview image on the Diablo 4 website that contains something that wouldn't exist otherwise: a new flail weapon type.

Every season you can fill out a battle pass of sorts that unlocks fancy weapon skins, and people quickly spotted a curious looking weapon on the info page for the upcoming Season of Divine Intervention. Under "additional bonus rewards" there's a flail alongside a mace and a glaive, and unless they're giving necromancers a new weapon type, I think we're looking at a clear hint at paladins making their way to Sanctuary immediately.

It would line up with a bunch of other hints we've gotten in the past few months about what's happening with Diablo 4 at The Game Awards on December 11. Those include:

• An internal build of the game had "paladin" in the title before it got taken down earlier this year
• Diablo 4 developers urged people to watch The Game Awards in an interview last month
• Season of Divine Intervention happens to start right at the end of The Game Awards
• The developers once again told everyone to watch The Game Awards earlier this week
• The lead class designer pointed out the coincidence on X with a thinking emoji

I don't know about you, but I think this smells like a surprise paladin release for people who preorder the next expansion. World of Warcraft players got player housing early; Diablo players get a class that people have been begging for since it came out.

It'll be interesting to see how the new season goes if this is the case. Season of Divine Intervention is basically overhauling a few of the core systems in Diablo 4, like itemization and crafting. Upgrading your gear won't be as tedious as before, and there will be a new way to gamble with your items to make them even more powerful than you can normally.

Keep an eye out for Diablo-related stuff at The Game Awards on December 11, and then pray the servers don't collapse under the weight of everyone scrambling to play a new class when the season launches right as the show ends.

Bethesda's venerable sci-fi RPG franchise Fallout has made a huge splash as an Amazon Prime streaming series, and now the video game studio's boss Todd Howard says its fantasy-focused Elder Scrolls series could be up next - but maybe not for a while.

Howard tells Eurogamer that he "can't rule in or rule out an Elder Scrolls thing in the future," but like the Fallout show, it might be a "10 year" process.

"I will say this, the Fallout journey was like a 10 year one," After Fallout 3, people were asking to do a movie or show for Fallout, and we really took our time. But, you never know. I think the impact of the show on Fallout as a franchise has been bigger than I expected, so it does make you think like 'hey, is there a path?'. But, nothing today… [and] I'm willing to say 'no' for a decade."

Howard also says he thinks Fallout is "more uniquely suited" to adaptation, with "more to say in its genre." That makes sense as any large-scale fantasy drama will inevitably draw comparisons to HBO Max's powerhouse Game of Thrones franchise, for better and for worse.

The Fallout show stands apart from many of its genre contemporaries with a somewhat twisted retro-futuristic take on the apocalypse. Bands of mutants and violent bandits roam an irradiated wasteland while Vault dwellers hide out in the apparent safety of '50s-style underground suburbias – that is, until characters like Ella Purnell's Lucy MacLean find themselves forced to leave those shelters.

Fallout season 2 premieres on Amazon Prime Video on December 17, with new episodes following every week. For more, check out our picks for the best Fallout games, ranked.