CD Projekt has unveiled Cyberpunk 2077 patch 2.2, which significantly expands the game’s customization options.
Developed in partnership with support developer Virtuous, 2.2 is called ‘Express Yourself,’ with the idea that players can express themselves more in-game. The update launches today, December 10.
2.2 lets players change the colors of more cars in a more detailed way, with an upgraded vehicle customization user interface. The new TwinTone feature lets you scan any car in Night City and add its paint job to your car. The idea is if you’re driving around and see a cool car, you’ll be able to save its paint job in a database and from there apply it to your cars. This creates a paint job collecting and exploration aspect to Cyberpunk 2077.
There are gameplay implications, too – if you change the color of your car while you’re being chased by the police, you’ll fade out your heat level. So, you can escape into an alley, change your color, then drive away Scott free.
10 cars previously unavailable to buy or own will be added to the Auto Fixer website, eight to the base game and two to the Phantom Liberty expansion.
Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves, will spawn next to you in the passenger seat around 25% of the time. The idea here is to increase the presence of Johnny while playing, reinforcing the fact he’s stuck in your brain. He’ll make comments, too, some of which are insults. Johnny will not spawn when you’re in combat, when another NPC is sat in the passenger seat, or when you’re on main story quests (since he’s usually involved in those) but CD Projekt said you’ll see him quite a bit. You’ll be able to use photo mode when Johnny is sat next to you, too.
Speaking of photo mode, the camera is much improved. It now has a drone mode letting it fly around farther due to a bigger range. You can disable collisions, too, to help nail that perfect shot. The new aspect ratio feature is PC only, unfortunately, due to limitations with the consoles. There are new lighting options, too.
2.2 will let you spawn up to three NPCs from a list of characters taken from the base game and Phantom Liberty in Photo Mode. Smasher is one of the NPCs you can spawn, complete with unique poses, so you’ll be able to have your revenge on him if you want.
Generally, photo mode has a reworked user interface, with additional depth of field options. CD Projekt hopes that the improvements to photo mode will mean players won’t need to rely on mods or other external software to take their in-game pictures.
There’s a new gallery you can display in your apartment to show off your snaps. So you can hang a picture of your date with Panam up on the wall for… future reference, if you fancy it.
Moving on to the character creator, there are 112 new assets available for customization of V. Eight new face plates are available, so you can make your character look like they’re a member of The Mox if you’d like. New nail and even lip designs are in there, too, lifted from the various corporations in Cyberpunk 2077, and loads of new eyes (including double eyes). There’s a new randomizer, too, with a ‘plain to punk’ slider to influence what it might spit out. You can lock specific assets, too, then continue with the randomizer.
During a community broadcast, game director Paweł Sasko teased additions CD Projekt will let fans discover for themselves. There are a “bunch of new things that happen in the city,” which will no doubt set players on a hunt throughout Night City. There are a couple of secrets Sasko has yet to see appear online even from the base game, so there’s plenty to work towards.
Is this the true end for Cyberpunk 2077? CD Projekt has yet to say. 64 staff at CD Projekt are working on Orion, the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, but most are working on The Witcher 4.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Undaunted: Normandy was a surprise smash hit back in 2019 thanks to its novel marriage of building a deck of action cards in-game that you then played to command squads of soldiers on a board. It spawned several spin-offs with the same World War II theme, including the aerial Undaunted: Battle of Britain and the stupendous campaign version Undaunted: Stalingrad. (Those games are so exceptional, by the way, they landed on our lists of the best war board games and best deck-building games.)
However, right back to the original, some players who were uncomfortable reducing real-life conflict to a game wanted a sci-fi version. Now their wish has been granted, as the same systems have been ported to the fight for an icy, mineral-rich moon between miners and their corporate overlords in Undaunted 2200: Callisto
What’s in the Box
Undaunted 2200: Callisto arrives in a very heavy box, and those familiar with the previous entries in the series may be surprised to find the weight is mostly down to four double-sided, fold-out boards, replacing the modular board tiles of the original. While this reduces the number of maps you can fight on it is, for the most part, a positive change making setup easier and the boards better looking, with clear space demarcations and helpful information printed around the edges. The board art is suitably dark, cold and futuristic.
Some other surprises await. Alongside the 10-sided dice that the series has always used are a collection of eight- and 12-sided ones, used with one of this entry’s new rules, shooting at different elevations. This is also the first entry to contain a dedicated solo rule book, with solitaire play being available only via an expansion previously. There are also game rules and a scenario booklet which are clear and concise.
Beneath these are more familiar components. There are a couple of sheets of punch-out tokens and standees, which represent foot units and vehicles, respectively. There are also two large decks of cards, one for each faction, which you’ll use to command your troops. The art on these is detailed and atmospheric but has one problem: most of the figures depicted are in space suits, which makes them feel weirdly anonymous and identikit, despite efforts being made to visually differentiate the two factions. This, alongside the black-on-yellow and white-on-blue of the counters, can also make it a little awkward to tell at a glance exactly what unit under your command is what.
Rules and How it Plays
The core gameplay remains unchanged, so veterans of the series can dive right in. Each scenario gives you a list of cards for your starting deck, and a bigger pool of cards you can incorporate into your deck during play. At the start of each turn, both players draw four cards and pick one to bid for initiative, with more powerful cards having a higher bid value. Going first can have a huge impact on how the turn unfolds, and the loser’s card is wasted, so this is a rapidly repeating dose of tension.
Your other cards can be a mix of combat and command cards. Playing the former allows you to activate the corresponding counters on the board to do things like move and attack. The latter let you either choose new cards to add to your deck, or sometimes to draw more cards or re-activate units for a second action in the same turn. How you choose to use command cards is a fascinating strategic puzzle that depends on the scenario and the state of your forces. The more cards you add, the slower your deck will cycle and the less likely it is you’ll get complementary cards in your draw, but it also gives units more staying power in a game where eliminating enemies is often a victory condition.
When it comes to activating troops, you can’t just rush for objective spaces, or into combat with foes. Before most counters can reach a space, it has to be marked as scouted, which is the preserve of cards with the matching action, generally recon and navigation units. Once scouted, heavier units can move in and use an action to control the space, which is the other key victory condition in most scenarios. This sets up a constant stress over how to most effectively move and utilize the forces at your disposal. Each space has a defensive bonus, and the need to scout often leaves counters in vulnerable positions before they can creep into safely. Similarly, you often want your soldiers to be attacking, not spending precious actions to take control of spaces.
Most of the new game aspects add pieces to this tactical puzzle. Most noteworthy is a simple elevation system, where clearly marked spaces and platforms are treated as one level above standard spaces. Firing up a space means you’re rolling an eight-sided dice against the target number of the counter’s defense, plus the range, plus the bonus printed on the space they’re in. Firing down gets you a 12-sided dice, whereas the same elevation uses 10-sided dice. When target numbers are generally six or more, that variation makes a huge difference, meaning the fight over elevated spaces can be vicious, diverting your attention away from the objective spaces that can win you the game.
The other major change is the addition of space-specific actions, which are also printed on the board. Most commonly these are doors which you can spend an action to open, or to attack, removing them permanently, although some scenarios have laser turret spaces you can use to make a powerful attack. Between these action spaces and the elevation rules, Undaunted 2200: Callisto answers another common request from fans of the series for more interactive terrain rules. Like everything else in the game, the designer’s solution is streamlined yet effective, adding variety and depth to play with minimal extra rules overhead.
Undaunted 2200: Callisto answers another common request from fans for more interactive terrain rules.
Vehicles are another example of this thought process at work. They have a shield printed round their defensive values, which essentially means they’re immune to small-arms fire. Some attack options have values to use against soft foot units, while others can attack these armored targets: often the ranges and values are different. A mining Ripper unit, their standard troop, rolls one die at any range against soft targets, but gets two dice against armored targets in the same hex, for example. Vehicle units can be very powerful, not only in terms of firepower but also flexibility, and so become yet another move in the interlocking circles of prioritization that bedevil all your choices in this game.
Units also get plenty of variety. In addition to the standard scouts, solider and machine-gunners that you meet in the first scenario, later units add additional effects such as area attacks and suppressing fire, or the ability to transport other troops with them for fast deployment. It’s also noteworthy that there’s more asymmetry in the units available to both sides than there were in earlier Undaunted games. The scouts available to the corporate player, for instance, move faster but have more limited attack options compared to their mining counterparts. This minor asymmetry is a welcome addition, making trying out each side in a scenario a much more interesting prospect.
Despite the sci-fi trappings, and the presence of mechs and laser turrets, this still feels like a pre-modern skirmish game. There are no awesomely powerful sci-fi weapons to leverage on either side, no cool technologies to harness, just re-themed rifles and machine guns. This, of course, betrays the roots of the game in World War Two. It doesn’t really spoil the game – getting up close and personal enhances the tactical options available, and you could make the same arguments about perhaps the most popular sci-fi tabletop game around, Warhammer 40k – but some players may find it disappointing.
The solo version plays well, although the overhead in following simple flowcharts for each unit, specific to each scenario, is a bit of a pain. The payoff is a mute enemy that makes tactically sensible choices, often offering clues as to the best way to approach any given scenario. There’s also a new team game for four which works surprisingly well, in which the troops on each side are subdivided into two decks, with teammates swapping the lead role in bidding for initiative each time. Splitting forces like this makes the chances of piecing together combos you might need in any given turn less likely, can be frustrating but also very exciting, and leads to emergent co-operative decision-making.
Mortal Kombat 1 developer NetherRealm has revealed a first look at Conan the Barbarian gameplay with a teaser video that also confirms the DLC character’s release date.
Conan the Barbarian’s early access release date is set for January 21, 2025, with a general release planned for a week later. In the video, below, we see Conan go up against Mortal Kombat’s villainous warmonger Shao Kahn and deliver the iconic line: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you.” Shao Kahn, clearly recognising the wisdom of the words, replies: “Truly, what is best in life.” The pair are kindred spirits, it seems.
In the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s titular character is asked: “what is best in life?” He responds: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” It sounds like NetherRealm left that last bit out.
As for the gameplay, Conan plays as you’d expect, with what looks like a fairly straightforward use of his Atlantean Sword. We see a number of flashy moves fans of the film will find familiar, including Conan’s sword swirl. Conan can deflect projectiles, too.
One open question is who voices Conan in Mortal Kombat 1? It seems likely that Chris Cox, who voiced the Terminator in Mortal Kombat 11, plays Conan here, given publisher Warner Bros. would probably have trumpeted getting Arnie in if it had managed it.
Conan the Barbarian is the fifth DLC character to be released for Mortal Kombat 1’s Kombat Pack 2, and follows Noob Saibot, Cyrax, Sektor, and last month’s addition of Ghostface from the Scream films. The sixth and final DLC character is T-1000 Terminator. Warner Bros. is yet to announce a third Kombat Pack or a new set of DLC characters.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
It’s that time of the year when in the middle of our personal GOTY list scrambles we sit back for a couple of hours to enjoy Geoff Keighley’s annual round-up. For the last 10 years, though it’s presented as a gong show and celebration, The Game Awards has essentially been a multiplatform conference, a platform for the big three, big third parties, and big indies to come together and get a trailer broadcast to the masses as holiday season approaches.
Say what you like, but you’ve got to give it to Keighley – it’s a big production and pulling off a show of that scale is a hell of a job. Juggling all those names and trying to squeeze in enough variety to showcase the enormous breadth of the industry is no mean feat – and it’s been a bumpy ride.
From Tabletop to Desktop – How Total War: Warhammer Created 100 Legendary Lords
Richard Aldridge, Senior Game Director, Creative Assembly
Summary
Total War: Warhammer III now has 100 Legendary Lords – learn how they got made.
Total War: Warhammer III Omens of Destruction is available now on the Microsoft Store.
Embark on campaigns of hero-slaying, mercenary conflict, and brutal battle tactics in Omens of Destruction.
Hello Xbox community! Today is a big day for Total War: Warhammer IIIas we release our latest – and very heavy metal-sounding – content pack, Omens of Destruction, right in time for the holiday season.
With a DLC name that strikes fear into the hearts of mere mortals, it welcomes four new infamous Legendary Lords into our ever-growing pantheon of playable characters from the Warhammer world, each with brand-new gameplay features, battle units and objectives.
The Lords in Omens of Destruction are Skulltaker, Gorbad Ironclaw and Golgfag Maneater – and we’reoffering another Legendary Lord, Arbaal the Undefeated for free, for all players. The introduction of these new Legendary Lords also brings our total number of playable characters up to an incredible 100, meaning there’s a huge variety of ways in which you can conquer our vast strategic fantasy world.
To celebrate this milestone, I wanted to talk through the process of picking a Legendary Lord to convert from the tabletop game, and some of my favorite stories from our time creating them.
How We Choose a Legendary Lord
Legendary Lords are the primary commanders of your armies in game, each of which hails from one of Warhammer’s uniquely weird, wild and wonderful array of races. These range from humans, elves and dwarves to daemons, ratmen and even vampire pirates – therefore, it’s essential that who we choose to include in game aligns with the established lore. There’s no shortage of potential characters and Lords to include in a DLC, given the library of lore that has been maintained by Games Workshop since the 1980s, but we always try to ensure that whatever we offer is bringing something fresh to the table and is actively complimenting the game.
Throughout our journey on the Total War: Warhammer series, which has lasted an astonishing eight years, the guiding tome of knowledge for what we include has generally been Warhammer 8th Edition, as this is the most recent compendium for the world in terms of rules, lore, and army compositions for the tabletop game. However, with each new game and DLC, we get another step closer to bringing the army books fully to life, meaning we’ve had to delve into all sorts of intriguing supplementary sources such as the Monstrous Arcanum, Tamurkhan campaign book, and even excerpts from the eternal pages of White Dwarf magazine.
Having these sources of inspiration has been invaluable for us game developers, and the characters we’ve included really highlight the diverse tapestry of storytelling within Warhammer.
My Favorite Creations
Choosing a single favorite Legendary Lord is like choosing a favorite child – impossible. Throughout the series we’ve made a real conscious effort to ensure that we’re not only providing Legendary Lords as part of DLC, but frequently designing some to be given away for free if you own the game.
As part of our Prophet and the Warlock DLC we introduced the mad scientist of Warhammer creations, Ikit Claw as a new Skaven Legendary Lord. As a game developer it’s always invigorating when you get to work on something that pushes the boundaries of your design direction, and he embodies that like few others. The greatest of all Warlock engineers, his gameplay is all about building hellish weapons of war like a cartoon villain and watching the campaign map go boom!
In terms of free content, Repanse de Lyonesse is one of those special characters. As a big fan of history, she really encapsulates that Jean of Arc mold of a fearless female warrior on horseback who goes crusading on behalf of her kingdom, amassing huge armies of knights and trebuchets to conquer the inhospitable deserts of the Southlands. She offers great roleplaying potential for those looking to blur the lines between a historic and fantasy experience.
Fans of the series will also know that I’m a huge Lizardman fan, which began all the way back when I was introduced to the tabletop game. Therefore, I’ve got to include Tictaq’to in this royal rumble. He was our first Lizardman to be given away for free and he rides into battle atop a flying mount in the form of a Terradon, ruthlessly dropping death from above on his foes. He’s effectively a deadly dinosaur riding another deadly dinosaur into battle – what’s not to love?
Our Most Challenging Creations
Over the years we’ve been lucky to have built up a fantastic relationship with Games Workshop and nowhere is that more evident than when they collaborated with us to create a brand-new character, Cylostra Direfin, to take the role of a Legendary Lord. Creating an undead sea-witch (who happens to captain a ghost galleon that marauds around the campaign map causing untold skullduggery) was an exciting opportunity, but also one that came with a pirate’s trove of challenges that we were experiencing for the first time. One of the biggest of these challenges was just making sure she felt like a natural fit alongside all of the established lore, as this was something we knew our fans would be particularly keen to ensure we got right.
Beyond individual characters, entire races within the Warhammer world can pose their own unique challenges too. A perfect example of this is the fabled Wood Elves, an elite Elven army that strives to protect nature, and in particular the great Woodland of Athel Loren. The problem? They’re isolationists, which on paper doesn’t exactly gel particularly well with a strategy game in which we encourage you to conquer the world. The solution was building a campaign that still revolved around their protectionist nature, but provided unique ways in which they could traverse the world to enact destruction upon all those who threaten to disturb their habitats.
Play Omens of Destruction Now
If you’re interested in embarking on campaigns of hero-slaying, mercenary conflict, and brutal battle tactics, Omens of Destruction is available now on the Microsoft Store. Alternatively, if you just want to jump into the fray for free, Arbaal the Undefeated is also available to play for all owners of Total War: Warhammer III. Happy Holidays!
Total War: WARHAMMER III – Immortal Empires is now available to all owners of Total War: WARHAMMER III.
Any content purchased across the Total War: WARHAMMER franchise is now available to use in Immortal Empires without the required ownership of Total War: WARHAMMER & Total War: WARHAMMER II. For more information, please visit our FAQ on the Total War Blog.
IMMORTAL EMPIRES IS OUT NOW.
Immortal Empires is the culmination of the entire Total War: WARHAMMER series. Combining the campaign maps, races, and factions from all three games* into a single, epic sandbox campaign. It’s the most complete and definitive Warhammer strategy experience ever conceived!
*Owners of Total War WARHAMMER III must own Total War: WARHAMMER and Total War: WARHAMMER II to start their own Immortal Empires Campaign. However, players who only own WARHAMMER III may join Immortal Empires multiplayer campaigns launched by an owner of all three games.
THE WORLD TEETERS ON THE BRINK OF CHAOS
The last roar of a dying god ruptures the boundary between worlds, opening a portal to the Realm of Chaos. From this maelstrom, the four Ruinous Powers – Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh – emerge, spreading darkness and despair. The stern warriors of Kislev and the vast empire of Grand Cathay stand at the threshold, as a vengeful Daemon Prince vows to destroy those who corrupted him. The coming conflict will engulf all. Will you conquer your daemons? Or command them?
RAISE A MIGHTY ARMY
With seven unique races and hundreds of units under your command, raise an army and dominate in epic real-time battles across a world of breathtaking scale and spectacle.
BUILD AN EMPIRE
In the most ambitious and groundbreaking Total War title to date, dive into a captivating narrative that will take you to the mind-bending Realm of Chaos and back again. Forge your empire in a strategy sandbox that ensures no two campaigns are ever the same.
CHOOSE YOUR HERO
Play as 10 Legendary Lords! Will you side with the Chaos Gods and take one of their Daemonic Champions, play as an ancient transforming Dragon from Grand Cathay, defend the frozen nation of Kislev with the Ice Queen or play the ultimate villain as the Daemon Prince?
UNLEASH YOUR INNER DAEMON
Customise the Daemon Prince to your own unique design with a huge suite of body parts and powers, creating billions of potential combinations to suit your own playstyle.
MULTIPLAYER CHAOS
Multiplayer is now bigger than ever. With the vast 8-player Realm of Chaos multiplayer campaign, the intense 1 v 1 Domination mode, the story-driven multiplayer campaigns built around Kislev and Grand Cathay and ranked & custom battles, there’s no shortage of ways to cause chaos with friends.
Azul is undoubtedly the highlight of the sale, especially for those who might have missed the Black Friday discounts last month. It’s down to $15.99 when you clip the list voucher on Amazon, over 50% off its original list price of $39.99. It’s a brilliant board game, and quite rightly earned a spot on IGN’s list of the best family board games, and received a highly recommended 8/10 in our review.
But Azul isn’t the only board game in the sale, no matter how popular it is. Other top discounts include games like Pandemic, where players must work together playing to their characters’ strengths as they plan their strategy of eradicating the diseases before they overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. It’s down to $18.39 when clipping the list voucher.
Then there are also absolute classics like Ticket to Ride or Catan, both also down to just $20.39 when clipping the voucher. While Azul is a couple of dollars more than the Black Friday sales, both Ticket to Ride and Catan are actually less, as each was listed for $25 over the past few weeks.
That makes this an excellent opportunity to stock on up on more board games ready for the holiday play sessions. For more board game roundups, check out the best roll-and-write games, and the best deck-building games.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
The demo for SNØ: Ultimate Freeriding isn’t that new. It actually came out in September, but I’m filing it under the secret best unspoken RPS site category of “News (To Me)”, a whizcrack piece of web 3.0 technology that allows us to travel back in time and ‘announce’ things that don’t seem any less noteworthy for their advancing age.
If you think that’s a desperately cavalier and confusing way to run a news section, I can only suggest that you email a complaint to our news editor. Spoilers: our news editor is me, and I have already thrown your complaint in the bin. Mate, I don’t tell you how to do your job, but I’d be more than happy to, if you let me know what it is. Anyway, what were we talking about. Oh yeah, skiiing!
Sony has added a handful of beloved PS2 games to its PlayStation Plus Classic Games Catalog such as those from the Sly Cooper and Jak and Daxter franchises today, December 10.
The three games previously announced by Sony are available to players with the most expensive PS Plus Premium subscription. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves can all be downloaded now.
Sony will announce the full collection of December’s games coming to not just the Classic Games Catalog but the regular Games Catalog tomorrow, December 13.
All three games were well-received when IGN reviewed them upon release in the 2000s. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy earned a 9/10, when IGN called it “really something special” and said “it has that magical feeling that not all games can possess and it’s just flat out a joy to play.”
Sly 2: Band of Thieves also received a 9/10. “The amount of creativity that is packed into the different quests and the various characters is nothing short of amazing and it all combines to form a mega fun adventure,” we said.
Among my last-resort tactics for generating precious PC gaming news is to go on holiday – for as sure as toast lands buttered side down while cats always land on their feet, as sure as the number 13 breeds calamity and Star Citizen committing to a release date guarantees a delay, myself going on holiday will always, somehow, conjure a big story from the crevices. It’s basic physics. In this case, I was on holiday from Friday through Monday, and this fact and this fact alone appears to have coaxed some toy manufacturer into taking the internet’s most cherished indie gaming platform offline by means of a “bogus” phishing report, sent by “AI-powered” brand protection software.
The situation has now been resolved, thankfully, and you can access Itch.io as normal, but I will never pass up the opportunity to cast shade on Funko Pop, whose NFT-garlanded bobbleheads I hate as I do veruccas and forest fires. So here’s a quick recap if you, too, missed the drama.
Changes are coming to action role-playing game Path of Exile 2 thick and fast following its huge Early Access launch, with a new hotfix out now.
In a post on the Path of Exile forum, developer Grinding Gear Games published a list of issues it felt needed to be “urgently addressed,” with other less urgent issues to be tackled later on. Chief among them is the feeling that Path of Exile 2 isn’t rewarding enough, something GGG acknowledged is a problem.
“One of the major problems that players have been experiencing is feeling that the game is not rewarding enough,” it said. “This is an area that we have to be very careful when adjusting because it’s very hard to reduce drops if we increase them by too much.”
Specifically, GGG felt that rare monsters were not rewarding enough, especially in the endgame where unique monsters are less common. GGG also saw that the reward players received for the increased difficulty of rares wasn’t lining up.
So, it’s doubling the rarity bonus per rare mod, increasing the quantity bonus per rare mod by 10%, and increasing the chance of rare monsters inherently having more modifiers as players progress through endgame.
“These changes will cause rare monster rewards to naturally scale up as you get to higher levels because the number of mods a monster can have increases throughout the campaign and into endgame,” GGG explained.
“In addition, many other forms of map juicing will indirectly cause rare monsters to have more mods as well, increasing the rewards of these other mechanics too.”
Meanwhile, GGG is changing the game to make sure each map has a minimum number of rares, which will also increase the average number of rare mods and thus increase drops further.
Another major issue GGG has identified is outlier “unlucky” drops. “A single unique boss dropping badly, especially early on can significantly affect your character,” GGG admitted. Changes here include no more than 50% of a unique monster’s drops can be gold, and act bosses and map bosses will now always drop at least one rare.
Elsewhere, GGG is making dodge roll changes after players complained about being trapped in by monsters. “While it is intended that monsters are able to trap and kill you, we felt that the frequency of this was a little too high,” GGG explained.
GGG has posted the first set of patch notes for these changes, with more to come as they’re rolled out. Check out the patch notes for 0.1.0c below (you will need to restart your client to receive the client changes in this patch).
GGG is already nerfing a number of Path of Exile 2 skills it’s deemed to have “unacceptable balance.” And in a fresh tweet, the developer said it plans to nerf Raging Spirits so it can only summon five Raging Spirits per cast at all levels. They will also no longer be able to be spawned from triggered Fire Skills. Players are already calling on GGG to give all a full character respec opportunity as a result.
In an upcoming hotfix, we’ll be making it so that Raging Spirits can only summon 5 Raging Spirits per cast at all levels. They will also no longer be able to be spawned from triggered Fire Skills.
After this hotfix, we will be making adjustments to other Trigger Meta-Gems. In…
Campaign bosses killed after the first kill will now drop less currency items, replacing them with other items.
Increased the drop rate of Regal Orbs.
Significantly increased the drop rate of Gemcutter’s Prisms.
A single Gemcutter’s Prism also improves the Quality of a Skill Gem by +5% (previously +1%).
Lowered the drop rate of Chaos Orbs and distributed it amongst the other more valued Currency Items (Like Regal Orbs, Exalted Orbs).
Lowered the drop rate of Artificer’s Orbs and distributed it to Lesser Jeweller’s Orbs.
Disenchanting Rare Items with 6 Modifiers now provides 2 Regal Shards (previously 1). The value displayed will still show as 1 until a later patch.
Increased the values of all Prefix Modifiers that can roll on Waystones. We’ve also adjusted the chances of getting the more commonly powerful Modifiers such as increases to Rarity and Pack Size.
Monster Modifiers now grant higher amounts of Item Rarity and Item Quantity. This is most common on Magic and Rare enemies, but also affects Unique Enemies if applied through various Endgame Mechanics like the Deadly Evolution Keystone.
Increased the chance for Rare Monsters in Maps to have 3 or 4 modifiers.
Rare Monsters in Map areas are now revealed on the minimap when there are 200 Monsters remaining (previously 50).
Fixed a bug where some Persistent Buff Skills, such as Raging Spirits and Mana Remnants, were not working for the Infernalist when in Demon Form.
Fixed a bug where you could sometimes be unable to interact with the Map Device in The Ziggurat Refuge.
Fixed a bug where Monsters Shattered in a Blood Circle Ultimatum Encounter were not contributing blood.
Fixed a bug that could cause the instance to permanently stop time (freeze) when trying to revive a Chronomancer.
Fixed a bug where Rare Monsters could not be found within the Chimeral Wetlands.
Fixed a bug where “Move only” was name-locking.
Fixed three instance crashes.
Fixed a client crash.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
