The first Diablo III expansion has been unleashed; read our Reaper of Souls review to find out the verdict.
At some stage this week, you might spot the Diablo III game launcher busy itself downloading data for a “future patch”.
It sounds like the Battle.net desktop app might have begun predicting and developing features without consulting the Irvine dev team first. But this is no quiet takeover bid – it’s actually prep for the March 25 release of Reaper of Souls.
About 6GB in size, the download is full of textures, art files and models for Reaper of Souls, as well as patch 2.0.1 – the pre-release update that’ll be rolled out to every Diablo III player whether they’ve pre-purchased the expansion or not.
“By making this data available early, you’ll have less to download once the pre-expansion patch and expansion are released,” note Blizzard.
The encrypted data won’t introduce itself to the live game on your PC until the time is right. For now it’ll lie dormant, keeping its secrets behind an impermeable membrane, while you play vanilla Diablo III as normal.
Our Josh reckons Reaper of Souls will be the perfect excuse to go back to Diablo III. Between new, emergent dungeons, an Adventure Mode that makes the campaign non-linear, and enemies which require strategic thinking the base game’s monsters never entertained, I suggest it’s the perfect time to start. What do you lot think?
Thanks, VG247.