Author: Trafficblast

Ubisoft has released the full patch notes for the latest update to The Division 2, Title Update 3. The major piece of content included in the update is Operation Dark Hours, The Division 2’s first raid, but new features, apparel, and quality-of-life changes are included in Title Update 3 as well.

Operation Dark Hours is an eight-player raid available for those who’ve reached World Tier 5 and defeated Tidal Basin. The raid sends you and your team up again the Black Tusks, who have taken over the Washington National Airport. “Teamwork, collaboration, and adaptation will be necessary to defeat the Black Tusk,” The Division 2 community manager Johan LindholmMore wrote in the Title Update 3 patch notes. Operation Dark Hours is scheduled to go live tomorrow, May 16 at 9:00 AM PT / 12:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM BST.

Ubisoft has announced that the first teams to complete Operation Dark Hours first will receive limited-time prizes. The very first team will have their team photo displayed in The Division 2’s White House for all other players to see. Any team that completes the raid between May 16-23 will receive a cosmetic arm patch. If you can’t pull together an eight-person team in time–which is a likely possibility considering the raid won’t have matchmaking–you’ll still be rewarded with a clan banner icon and a trophy just for completing the raid at any point in the future.

For Year 1 Pass owners, Title Update 3 adds the first two Classified Assignment missions. Completing them allows you to hear the stories behind the fall of DC prior to the start of The Division 2’s campaign and also unlock backpack trophies. Title Update 3 also includes The Division 2’s second Apparel event, which adds new outfits, masks, emotes, and weapon skins to the game.

The full patch notes for Title Update 3 can be viewed in the link above. We’ve gone ahead and listed the highlights below. The Division 2 is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

The Division 2 Title Update 3 Patch Notes

Commendations

• Added new Commendations for Operation Dark Hours.
  • Removed the following Commendations.
  • 28 Days Distinction – Record 672 hours (28 days) of time in-game.
  • Distinguished Service Ribbon – For 30 consecutive days, on each day play for at least 1h and complete 1 mission.
  • Supreme Response Distinction – For 7 consecutive days, on each day complete 4 main missions and rescue 5 civilians.
  • Year One Merit – Play on 14 days per month, on a total of 12 months.
  • Division Service Merit – For a total of 100 days, on each day play for at least 1hour and deliver 20 resources to control points.
  • Developer comment: We removed these Commendations as we felt that they were not delivering a great experience for players. Often times you could miss out on your daily login or lose your streak with no error of your own. We’re adding different Commendations that still let you show off your dedication towards the game, without the login requirements. For those players that have already earned the above-mentioned Commendations they will remain visible as completed.
• Added a new vanity patch reward for all players as compensation for any lost time due to the above changes.
• Added five new Commendations
  • Full Deck Distinction – Acquire all Snitch Cards.
  • Distinguished Service Distinction – Complete 30 hours of service.
  • Supreme Response Distinction – Complete all main missions and Strongholds on Hard difficulty (or above).
  • Control Point Takeover Merit – Take over 50 Heroic Control Points.
  • Invasion Service Merit – Complete 10 Invaded Strongholds.
• Changed Peacock Award to specifically use the ‘Jumping Jacks’ emote.
• Changed Mission Discovery Merit Commendations to track when a player collects loot from loot boxes, not opening the loot boxes. This will ensure that all players that are in a group can earn this Commendation when playing the respective missions.

Crafting

• Increased the base cap for Receiver Components and Protective Fabric crafting materials by 200, meaning that their caps now start at 350 and end at 600 with all material capacity perks.
• Inaya al-Khaliq in the Base of Operation is now a Crafting Vendor, she can be found next to the Crafting Bench in the White House.
  • Added Specialized and Superior Skill Mod Blueprints to her stock.
  • Added an extra weekly Blueprint to her stock.
  • Moved crafting Blueprints from the Base of Operations vendor to her stock.
  • Note: While Inaya will have a variety of Blueprints available, there are still other sources in the game like Settlements and Control Points.
• All exotic items upgraded through crafting will get the maximum Gear Score of the current crafting bench tier.

Gear

• Bonus Armor granted on blue attributes gear significantly increased.
• Armor percent can now be found as Defense Attribute rolls.
• Health percent can now be found as Defense Attribute rolls.
• Gear sets
  • Hard Wired
    • Now grants Skill Damage instead of Shock Duration.
  • Ongoing Directive
    • Now grants special ammunition into any weapon, including the weapon currently equipped.
    • Now grants special ammunition on any kill, not just weapon kills.
  • True Patriot
    • Decreased debuff cycle from 4 seconds to 2 seconds.
    • Increased damage dealt to nearby targets when Full Flag is active to 50%.

Icons

• The Confidential Gear Set intel item now has a project icon to better reflect its use.

Loot

• Loot containers will now reset at a preset time of day.
  • Control Point reward container will now also reset with this daily timer.
• Improved quality and quantity of Drone Helicopter loot.
• Slightly reduced the quality of items from Clan Caches.
• Cabinet loot containers now have a chance to contain Dark Zone keys.
• Increased ammunition drop chance from enemy NPCs to limit situations where players would run out of ammunition during prolonged fights on higher difficulty activities.
• Dark Zone contaminated loot does not drop below player’s average Gear Score and will guarantee Gear Score 500 when the player has reached 500 Gear Score.
• Heroic difficulty Mission bosses, Stronghold bosses, Bounty bosses and Heroic Control Points reward containers will guarantee Gear Score 500 when the player has reached 500 Gear Score.
• Loot now skews more towards the top end of its allowed Gear Score, resulting in fewer items below a player’s average Gear Score, and items that do drop below it will be closer to that average more often.
• Increased the rewards for daily Hard and Challenge mission Projects and they will guarantee Gear Score 500 when the player has reached 500 Gear Score.

Missions

• New feature: Post Mission Activity Summary
  • After completing missions, players may opt to look at an activity summary showcasing their performance in that activity and allowing an expanded look at a variety of detailed statistics.
  • Bank Headquarters
    • Reduced difficulty for solo players.
  • Roosevelt Island
    • Reduced difficulty for solo players.

Mods

• Hive users can now find +healing on the Experimental Blend mods.
• Hive users can now find +radius on the Network Firewall mods.
• New mods: Auxiliary Skill Battery
• Auxiliary Skill Batteries fit in Skill mod slots and grant Skill Power.

NPC

• Updated RC Blade to fix various issues. Elite Medic’s Pulse Grenade has been changed.
• • No longer applies disrupt.
  • Reduced Impact radius.
  • The grenade impact radius should now be easier to see.
• Decreased damage of Veteran, Elite and Named NPCs.
• Greatly decreased melee damage of all Tank NPCs.
• Moderately decreased melee damage of all non-Tank NPCs.
• Decreased Thrower NPC’s accuracy with grenades. They are no longer professional baseball pitchers or cricket fielders.
• Slightly decreased damage of Elite/Named War Hound.
• Civilian Control Point Officers now wear pants.
• Civilian Control Point Officers now wear protective body armor. Safety first.
• Civilians with fully upgraded Settlements now wear combat harnesses and have slightly more health.
• Upgrading a Settlement now slightly increased Civilians’ damage.
• NPCs will now be slightly less defensive while in cover and being aimed at by a player.
• Decreased likelihood of NPCs using ladders in combat.
• Decreased likelihood of NPCs using special navigation out of combat.
• Civilian NPCs will now stay further away from players in cover, lessening the chance of them taking a player’s preferred cover location. We get it, you’re very protective of your favorite cover spot.
• Civilian Hostages are now more protective of their lives.
• Fixed issue with many explosives causing extreme amounts of threat, confusing NPCs.
• Fixed various sliding issues with NPCs following recovery from a Status Effect.
• Enemy NPCs should no longer be able to stagger players with a melee attack if the player has a Ballistic Shield equipped.
• Drone Helicopter
  • Increased health.
  • Increased damage.
  • Improved movement.
• Decreased Outcast Suicide vest explosion radius.
• Lowered NPC damage and health above normal difficulty.
• Increased variety of NPCs at higher difficulty levels.

Open World

• Implemented various UI and audio improvements to Living World activities.
• Control Points
  • Control Point difficulty is now more clearly communicated, using regular difficulty names in addition to Alert Level.
  • Approaching enemy patrols and convoys are now signaled more clearly during Control Point Takeover.
  • The Civilian Officer will now revive downed players during Control Point takeover and judge you silently.
  • Players can now select the civilian takeover icon on the map as a respawn option during Control Point takeover. The option is disabled after the enemy leader joins the fight.
  • Players can now fast travel to civilian convoys and takeover squads from the map.
• Black Tusk now send War Hound Convoys carrying gear and weapons to Tidal Basin when the mission is available.

The Xbox Store had a great offering of Xbox One game deals last week, and the digital store is keeping the ball rolling this week with another solid batch of deals. Here are the best discounted games to grab on Xbox One right now:

First up is a collection of “Super Saver” deals up to 85% off some Xbox One games, including Tomb Raider‘s Definitive edition for $6 and Sleeping Dogs‘ Definitive edition for only $4.49. The complete first season of Life Is Strange is available for only $4, and you can grab Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for $4.50.

Golden Week may have ended, but you can still find deals on Japanese-developed games for Xbox One. SoulCalibur VI, which released last October, is 67% off right now; you can pick it up for $19.80. Final Fantasy XV‘s Royal edition is marked down to $25 from $50; Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is now $15 instead of $60; and Valkyria Chronicles 4 is discounted to $30 from $60.

May 17 marks 10 years since block-building phenomenon Minecraft was released, and as one of Microsoft’s biggest games, the store is celebrating with a sale. The base game was recently added to Xbox Game Pass, where members can play it for free. As a bonus, you can get three months of Xbox Game Pass for only $1 right now. For non-members, Minecraft’s standard edition is on sale for $10. The Minecraft Starter Collection, which includes the Greek Mythology Mash-up, Texture Pack, two skin packs, and 700 Minecoins, is discounted to $20 from $30. Meanwhile, the Master Collection, which includes the base game, 1,000 Minecoins, the Starter Pack DLC, and Creators Pack DLC, is available for $40 instead of $50.

As usual, these deals are available through next Monday, May 20 (with the exception of the Minecraft deals, which run through the following Thursday, May 23).

SHOP THIS WEEK’S XBOX ONE DEALS »

See some of the best game deals below, and visit the Microsoft Store to see everything available at a discount this week.

Ubisoft is making big plans for the coming year. The company revealed during its latest financial earnings that it still has three more unannounced triple-A games coming within the next fiscal year, teeing up a likely set of E3 2019 reveals. Each of them is slated for release by March 31, 2020.

Though the company was relatively quiet in its financial report on plans for these three games, it did drop a few intriguing clues. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during the investor Q&A that each of the games are full-priced releases. The studio also seemed to suggest that the games will be different genres, calling them each “unique experiences” that occupy different spaces in the market. The Q&A also narrowed the release window to Q4, which suggests they’ll release between January and March of 2020.

The three unannounced games were part of a slate of four games total coming in the fiscal year, one of which was announced last week: Ghost Recon Breakpoint. That game is a followup to Ghost Recon Wildlands, but offers a host of new mechanics and options.

Another possible game on Ubisoft’s slate could be the next Assassin’s Creed, which is rumored to take place in the Viking era. However, that game is said to be coming in 2020, and Assassin’s Creed games usually target a fall release, which would put it outside these fiscal year plans. We also learned today that Skull and Bones, the pirate combat game, has been delayed.

That leaves at least two games unaccounted for in the next year. Those could include franchises like Watch Dogs or Splinter Cell, experimental one-offs like Steep, or even another partnership with Nintendo like Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Ubisoft says we’ll hear more about these games soon, which likely means during Ubisoft’s E3 press conference.

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Pokemon Go‘s Detective Pikachu event may be winding down, but the game’s next Community Day is just around the corner. Niantic is bringing the monthly event back this Sunday, May 19, giving players around the world another chance to catch a rare Pokemon and even come away with a special event-exclusive move.

Pokemon Go Community Days typically only run for three hours, but the specifics of each event–such as what time it begins and what bonuses you’ll be able to earn–tend to vary month by month. To help you get ready for the event, we’ve rounded up all of the most important details about May 2019’s Community Day below.

What Is The Featured Pokemon?

Niantic designates one “featured” Pokemon ahead of every Community Day. During the event, this Pokemon will spawn much more frequently in the wild than it normally does, and you’ll even have a chance of coming across its Shiny variant. Moreover, if you’re able to evolve the featured Pokemon into its final form by the end of the Community Day, it’ll automatically know a special, event-exclusive move that it wouldn’t otherwise be able to learn in Pokemon Go.

For May’s Community Day, the featured Pokemon is Torchic, the Fire-type starter from Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. Throughout the event, Torchic will be much easier to find in the wild than usual, and you’ll have your first opportunity to catch a Shiny Torchic. On top of that, if you’re able to evolve Torchic all the way into Blaziken up to an hour after the Community Day ends, it’ll learn the powerful Fire attack Blast Burn. This applies to any Torchic you evolve, even those you’ve captured prior to the event.

What Time Does It Start?

For most of the time the event has been around, Niantic held each Community Day during a specific window of time, which varied depending upon your region; North America’s event, for instance, would always run from 11 AM – 2 PM PT, while Europe’s Community Day would take place from 10 AM – 1 PM UTC.

Beginning this past March, however, Niantic changed the schedule for Community Days. Now, rather than holding the event during a different window of time in each region, it will take place everywhere from 3-6 PM local time. This should make it much easier to remember when the Community Day is happening in your area, as you no longer need to convert the event hours to your time zone.

What Other Bonuses Are There?

On top of increased Pokemon spawns, Niantic offers a couple of other bonuses as an extra incentive to participate in its Community Days. This month, you’ll earn triple the normal amount of Stardust for capturing Pokemon during the event hours. Additionally, any Lure Modules you use will last three hours, rather than their usual 30 minutes.

In what can only be called tradition at this point, Steam’s 2019 Summer Sale dates have leaked. The Steam Database Twitter account initially spotted the date on a Chinese Steam community page, SteamCN, and reportedly confirmed the date with multiple sources. If the leak is accurate, Steam’s Summer Sale will go live on June 25 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET / 5 PM GMT (and June 26 at 3 AM AET) and last for about two weeks.

In the past few years, start dates for the Summer Sale fell between June 21 and 23, so the reported 2019 date doesn’t stray far from precedent.

It’s likely this year’s sale will bring back the Steam trading cards and mini games of previous years. Last year’s game was Summer Salien, a browser game where you traveled the galaxy to rescue games that had been abducted by aliens. You could earn XP and unlock new abilities, and defending certain planets gave you the chance to win the corresponding game for free.

Steam has even more reason to pull out all the stops for this year’s Summer Sale, as the Epic Games Store is apparently gearing up to hold its first big store-wide sale. News of the Epic Mega Sale first leaked on a Fortnite message board and was later confirmed by Epic Games, which tweeted that more details are coming soon. The Epic Games Store continues to pick up exclusive PC versions of major titles, such as The Division 2 and Borderlands 3, but there’s no question Steam still has the greater volume and diversity of games that make its Summer Sale such a huge event for PC gamers.

We’ll update this piece as soon as Valve has confirmed dates for the Steam Summer Sale, but it’s safe to assume it’ll kick off near the end of June as usual. That leaves you some time to start prepping your wallet for one of the biggest game sales of the year.

In terms of Batman villains, Ra’s Al Ghul may not be as famous as someone like The Joker, but he’s definitely no slouch. One of the few enemies to ever learn Bruce Wayne’s identity, Ra’s has been a near constant threat for decades, always toeing the precarious line between full-blown supervillain and deadly rival–a dynamic that makes him the perfect candidate for a featured role in DC’s Year of The Villain event, which showcases some of the world’s most iconic evildoers in a brand new light.

Batman Vs. Ra’s Al Ghul #1, courtesy of DC Comics

Starting this August, Ra’s will star in a new six-issue miniseries written and drawn by his co-creator, comics legend Neal Adams. The story will focus on a Gotham City under siege by terrorists with Ra’s apparently offering his “help” to the officers of the GCPD. Additionally, a mystery uncovered by Boston Brand, otherwise known as Deadman, leads Bruce straight into the sights of the Demon’s Head himself.

To help celebrate the launch of the mini-series, DC will also be re-releasing a “facsimile edition” of Batman #232, which will reprint Ra’s now-iconic first appearance in “The Daughter Of The Demon” in its original format.

Both Batman Vs. Ra’s Al Ghul #1 and the Batman #232 facsimile edition hit shelves August 21.