While a new Diablo 3 expansion was not announced at the BlizzCon panel, game director Josh Mosqueria and Co. introduced update 2.4, a pretty significant update to Reaper of Souls that throws new areas, a new zone, a plethora of new legendary items and a new type of rift into the the already fat game.
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls was quite a turnaround for Blizzard and made it onto our list of the best PC RPGs.
The two new areas are Eternal Woods and the Royal Quarters, as in Leoric’s digs. Sniff around the Skeleton King’s bedroom, check out his loo, muck around in his wardrobe. Also, kill lots of undead and cultists.
A bit larger is a brand new zone, Greyhollow Island, set in Act V. Inside the dark and forested island lurk seven new events, “adventure mode-friendly storytelling” and 16 new monsters including the sasquatch-like beastie called the Bone breaker.
With new areas come new bounties, a ridiculous 175 of them spread across various acts. Among these bounties are the aforementioned new events, as well as Bounty Grounds, which you will be able to get to through red portals. Unique bounties like spins on cursed chests and awful treasure-goblin like creatures who don’t even spill treasure will be found inside Bounty Grounds.
Blizzard also wants to make gold feel more valuable, and it’s going to use rifts to do that. A Greater Rift can be, in 2.4, transformed into an Empowered Rift by spending a considerable amount of gold that goes up the higher the rifts are. The reward for these new rifts, however, will net players a 4th bonus roll to upgrade legendary gems. And legendary gems can be used to augment ancient items.
Speaking of items, 50 new legendaries will suddenly pop into existence. And, interestingly, items are getting their own dungeons. Well, sets are. Set dungeons are designed to challenge players using specific sets, and can’t be accessed unless a player has the set. The reward for completing these challenges is a new pennant to stick to your back. Expect 24 set dungeons, with 4 sets for each class.
FInally, Seasons are getting tweaked. The most notable change is the new Rebirth feature, which allows players to transform a regular character into a Seasonal one, sending their gear in the mail to another non-Seasonal character.
We’re currently in Season 4 at the moment, and that will continue until late December, say Blizzard. After that, expect a break of a couple of weeks before Season 5, which will be three months long.
If any of this is tickling your fancy, you won’t have to wait long to play. After a brief technical test, 2.4 will be hitting the PTR next week, around Wednesday or Thursday, so you can take it for a spin in less than a week.