Category: Games

Blizzard has announced Season 17 of Diablo III will begin on May 17. The new season launches alongside the latest patch for Diablo III, which implements numerous quality-of-life changes into the game.

During Season 17, players will receive a set bonus provided by Legacy of Nightmares. “Classes with especially powerful Legacy of Nightmare builds will be able to experiment with new combinations, particularly ones centered around their ring slots,” Diablo III associate community manager Brandy Camel wrote in a blog post. “Meanwhile, classes traditionally dependent on a heavy amount of survivability from their ring slots have more freedom to experiment with build-changing Legendaries that don’t rely on a Class Set.”

Season 17 brings with it more cosmetics to earn, some old and some new. Several cosmetics from Season 5 make their return, allowing you to unlock them if you missed out the first time. Starting May 17, you’ll be able to unlock Season 5’s pants and boots slots of the Conqueror Set, Greyhollow Island portrait frames, and the Wickerman pet. In terms of something new, completing all nine chapters of the Season Journey will earn you the Galactic Wings.

The seasonal conquest rotation continues in Season 17 as well. Sprinter, Speed Racer, Avarice, Avaritia, The Thrill, Superhuman, Years of War, Dynasty, Masters of the Universe, and Masters of Sets all go live on May 17. In Season 17, the class set rewarded have rotated as well. Completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Season Journey earns you the three necessary Haedrig’s Gifts necessary to unlock a full class set. Each of Season 17’s class sets are listed below.

Diablo III Season 17 Class Sets

• Barbarian — Might of the Earth
• Crusader — Thorns of the Invoker
• Demon Hunter — The Shadow’s Mantle
• Monk — Monkey King’s Garb
• Necromancer — Grace of Inarius
• Witch Doctor — Raiment of the Jade Harvester
• Wizard — Firebird’s Finery

May 17 also sees the release of a new patch for Diablo III that implements many quality-of-life changes. The full patch notes can be found in the blog post linked to in the text above, but we’ve outlined the highlights below.

Diablo III May 17 Update Patch Notes

General

• Torment 14, 15, and 16 have been added to the game
  • Reward and difficulty levels of all new Torments closely match Greater Rift 65, 70, and 75 respectively
• Portals left behind by Treasure Goblins may occasionally lead somewhere udderly ridiculous
• Using an Ancient or Primal Puzzle Ring in Kanai’s Cube will produce a new result
• Party portraits now display if a player’s Cheat Death buff has been recently used (PC Only)
• When a boss is killed in a Nephalem Rift, a permanent ping will mark the location of the boss’ death until the Rift is closed
• The Boss Notification screen has received a rework (PC Only)
• The Greater Rift Notification screen has received a rework (PC Only)
• The Greater Rift Completion screen has received a rework (PC Only)
• Matchmaking no longer prevents players from joining a game while a Greater Rift is already in progress
  • Players who join the game will still be unable to join a Greater Rift in progress
• The progress bar for a Greater Rift is now visible to all players in the game, regardless of whether they are participating in the Rift or not
• Challenge Rifts
• The amount of Death’s Breath rewarded by completing a Challenge Rift has been increased

Quality of Life

• Seasons
  • The cap for earning additional stash tabs through the Season Journey has been raised from 4 to 5 (PC Only)
• Search functionality has been added to Stash (PC Only)
• All Crafters now have an Expand/Collapse All button for recipes (PC Only)
• Most Bounty indicators are now displayed immediately after entering the Bounty area
• Death’s Breath now drop in Horadric Caches

Seasons

• The Season Journey Journal now displays all chapters, regardless of current progression
• There is a new reward for completing the entirety of the Season Journey (Guardian)
• For Season 17, the Galactic Wings are available
• Added the buff for Season 17
  • Player’s damage dealt is increased by 750% and damage taken is reduced by 4% for every Ancient Item they have equipped while having no Set Bonuses Active

Items

• (NEW) Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered
  • Become immune to control-impairing effects for 5-7 seconds after drinking this potion
• Akkhan’s Leniency
  • Each enemy hit by your Blessed Shield increases damage of your Blessed Shield by 15-20% 30-35% for 3 seconds
• Bloodtide Blade
  • Death Nova deals 80-100% 300-400% increased damage for every enemy within 25 yards
• Carnevil
  • ​The 5 10 Fetishes closest to you will shoot a powerful Poison Dart every time you do
• Chantodo’s Will
  • Every second while in Archon form you expel a Wave of Destruction, dealing 1000% 4000% weapon damage to enemies within 30 yards. Every time you hit with an attack while not in Archon form, 1000% 4000% weapon damage is added to the Wave of Destruction, stacking up to 20 times
  • Wave of Destruction damage now scale with attack speed
• The Dagger of Darts
  • Your Poison Darts and your Fetishes’ Poison Darts now pierce and deal an additional [400-500%] damage.
• Grace of Inarius
  • 6-Piece Bonus
    • Bone Armor also activates a swirling tornado of bone, damaging nearby enemies for 1000% weapon damage and increasing the damage they take from the Necromancer by 3750% 10000%
• Iron Rose
  • Attacking with Siphon Blood has a 40-50% 100% chance to cast a free Blood Nova
• Jekangbord
  • Blessed Shield ricochets to 6 additional enemies and has its damage increased by 225-300% 300-400%
• Sage’s Set
  • Now doubles the amount of Death’s Breaths that drop
    • Previous: Increases Death’s Breath drops by 1
• Sin Seekers
  • Now also adds 250-300% damage to Rapid Fire
• Wojahnni Assaulter
  • Rapid Fire deals 60-75% 75-100% increased damage for every half second that you channel. Stacks up to 4 30 times.
    • The stacks gained from Wojahnni Assaulter now also stack much more quickly

Bug Fixes

• Necromancer Simulacrums now benefit from the Trag’Oul’s Avatar 6-Piece Bonus
• Fixed and issue where Xbox One/PS4 Voice Chat within public games was failing to work (Xbox One and PS4 Only)
• Fixed an issue where The Immortal King’s Set Dungeon objective numbers were incorrect
• Fixed an issue where Greater Rift 70 first-time completion Primal drops were occurring for players even if they did not succeed at the 15-minute completion time
• Fixed an issue where Bounties that required interacting with an object would not update the next objective immediately after completing one
• Fixed an issue where a second Puzzle Ring tab would be shown in the Kanai’s Cube UI when a Puzzle Ring was equipped (Console Only)
• Fixed an issue where Keywarden icons would not show up on the map in Torment level games (Switch Only)
• Fixed an issue where some subtitles in the Taiwan localization would exceed the screen limit (Switch only)
• Fixed an issue where the mouse cursor may be hidden when launching the client (Mac only)

Interest seems high in Ash Ketchum’s yellow-fur companion, as the Pokemon movie Detective Pikachu has opened at the box office with an impressive $5.7 million on Thursday night in the US.

According to Variety, Detective Pikachu–directed by Rob Letterman (Goosebumps, Shark Tale)–came in not far behind Shazam’s $5.9 million Thursday opening last month. With the movie expanding to 4,202 theatres Friday, the Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary Pictures collaboration has positioned itself to take on the second biggest movie of all time, Avengers: Endgame, which is currently sitting comfy at $2.321 billion worldwide since its April 26 debut.

Variety suggests forecasts for Detective Pikachu shoot “as high as $80 million,” but Warner Bros. estimate it’ll fall closer to $50 million. We’ll know for sure in a few days.

Detective Pikachu, based on the 2018 3DS game of the same name, sees Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool 2, The Hitman’s Bodyguard) and Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Paper Towns) team up to search for Smith’s character’s missing father.

Detective Pikachu also stars Kathryn Newton (Blockers, Lady Bird), Karan Soni (Deadpool 2, Ghostbusters), Ken Watanabe (Isle of Dogs, Transformers: The Last Knight), Rita Ora (Fifty Shades Freed, Southpaw), and Suki Waterhouse (Billionaire Boys Club, Divergent: Insurgent).

In our Detective Pikachu review, we said the movie “should prove enjoyable for any and all Pokémon fans, young or old.” If you’ve seen the movie, be sure to check out our look at all the Detective Pikachu Easter eggs and references.

Square Enix finally released a new Final Fantasy VII remake trailer during Sony’s State of Play presentation on Thursday. While light on new details, the video did give us another look at how the highly anticipated PS4 remake is shaping up, and now the publisher has shared a few more tidbits about the game.

Following the State of Play broadcast, Square Enix sent out a Japanese press release about the new Final Fantasy VII remake trailer. According to Siliconera, the press release reaffirms that the remake will be a “multi-part production,” and that more information about the game will be revealed in June, presumably during Square Enix’s E3 press conference.

The Final Fantasy VII remake was first announced during Sony’s E3 2015 press conference, but since then, details about the game have been scarce. One aspect that Square Enix did confirm soon after the game’s reveal, however, was that it would be released in installments. The company further elaborated on this remark, clarifying the remake would be made up of multiple, full-sized games instead of a series of smaller episodes.

“It will essentially be a full scale game for each part of the multi-part series,” producer Yoshinori Kitase told Game Informer in 2016, likening the production to Final Fantasy XIII. “In XIII, each installment told the story from a different angle. It was kind of like approaching an unknown territory in a sense.

“Whereas with Final Fantasy VII Remake, we already have a preexisting story, so it wouldn’t really make sense if that isn’t encompassed in a multi-part series… So if we’re just looking at each of these parts, one part should be on par with the scale of one Final Fantasy XIII game.”

Following Thursday’s presentation, the official Final Fantasy Twitter account shared a message from Final Fantasy VII remake director Tetsuya Nomura, reiterating that more details about the game are on the way soon. “Most of the plans are already in place in the run up to launch, so please bear with us a little longer until we can release more information next month,” the message read.

The Final Fantasy VII remake is still without a release date, but it looks like the publisher is gearing up to finally pull back the curtain on the game. Square Enix’s E3 press conference takes place on Monday, June 10, at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET–the time slot Sony’s E3 briefing traditionally occupies. Of course, the company isn’t using that slot this year, as it announced back in November that it is skipping E3 2019.

The weekend is shaping up to be a good one for gamers. In addition to Steam’s free PC game offerings, you can also save money on dozens of PS4 games in the PlayStation Store this weekend. The flash sale just went live, so you can go take a look at all the deals available.

Some of the best offerings include Devil May Cry 5, which released two months ago and is now on sale for just under $40. You’ve also got Battlefield V, which is (once again) marked down to $30, and acclaimed RPG Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition, which is discounted to $39.

Several EA sports titles are considerably cheaper, such as Madden NFL 19 for $15, and FIFA 19 and NHL 19 for $18 each. Guacamelee 2‘s Complete edition is notably on sale for $13.79, and fans of Quantic Dream games may want to snag the Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls bundle selling for $20.

As “flash sale” implies, these deals won’t stick around long–they’ll be available now through Monday, May 13, at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET. So grab the games you want–and while you’re at it, check out the rest of this week’s best PS4 deals.

SHOP PSN’S FLASH SALE ON PS4 GAMES »

See more of the available deals below!

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is to skip Steam in favor of an Epic Games Store-exclusive release, publisher Ubisoft says. The game will also come to Ubisoft’s proprietary Uplay store, but will otherwise not be available digitally from alternative sources on PC.

The company confirmed the news to PCGamesN, but did not give a reason why it had decided to withhold Breakpoint from a Steam launch. Ubisoft’s two most recent games, Anno 1800 and The Division 2, have also skipped Steam in favor of the Epic Store. GameSpot has contacted Ubisoft to ask why the company has made this decision.

A possible explanation is that Epic takes a much smaller share of revenue than Valve does on Steam, making the former an attractive proposition for developers and publishers. On the other hand, Steam has a significant install base and has been around for much longer, meaning it possesses features the Epic Store does not, including cloud saves, achievements, and more.

Other big games, such as Metro: Exodus and Detroit: Become Human, have also skipped Steam, as Epic continues its drive to secure exclusives. Epic has stated it will change its policy of chasing exclusives if Valve reduces the cut it takes from game sales on Steam

Ghost Recon Breakpoint was revealed just recently and will launch on October 4 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. For more, check out our hands-on impressions and thoughts on why Ghost Recon Breakpoint is both promising and concerning.