The Darkness – Jackie Estacado

Jackie Estacado seems to be your average, run of the mill gangster. That is, until he’s possessed by The Darkness, an ancient malevolent entity that wreaks havoc and rips people apart, among other things. The Darkness has inhabited Jackie’s family line for generations and wars with him for control. While considered a demon in the games, the comic books reveal The Darkness to be the embodiment of chaos and evil, the void before the light and other such discomforting terms.

Gilded Falcons – Alundra

Alundra is an underrated and tough RPG from the PlayStation 1 era. Suffice to say, the challenge wasn’t just the annoying puzzles and platforming but doing so while finding all 50 Gilded Falcons. Sound easy? The Falcons themselves can be found in a variety of places including dungeons that you never revisit. The Falcon in Olen’s Nightmare is especially punishing since all Murgg enemies must be defeated within the time limit. Fail to do so and the dungeon is gone, never to return again.

Blizzard Entertainment has updated World of Warcraft: Legion with some major new content. Update 7.3 aka Shadows of Argus brings a new location for players, namely the Burning Legion’s homeworld Argus where the Army of Light will collide with the forces of evil in a climactic battle.

To travel to Argus, players will use the Vindicaar. They’ll visit new locations (including Invasion Points where players will enter portals and battle the Legion on different worlds), partake in new world quests, explore the new Seat of the Triumvirate dungeon and even see some new animations.

With such a heavy focus on story, where the Legion plotline will finally be wrapped up, players will have lots of new PvE content. The Class Hall will offer “dozens” of new missions, new Troop types and even the ability to increase the item level of your Champions to 950.

You can check out the full patch notes here with a few notes below.

Argus World Quests

As you progress through each of the areas to explore on Argus, you’ll unlock new World Quests and new Emissaries eager for your help.

Artifact Customization

Harness the power of Argus to activate the Netherlight Crucible aboard the Vindicaar, allowing you to augment your Artifact Relics. The Crucible can be used to strengthen and customize Relics, increasing their raw power and allowing players to choose from a set of additional powers, including a second Artifact Trait to improve.

Combat Animations

New and updated animations, effects, and audio are coming to all three Mage specs, all three Priest specs, and Elemental and Restoration Shamans. Restoration Druids have updated animations.

Class Halls, Champions, and Missions

Your Class Hall and its assorted Champions played key roles in the defense of Azeroth, and their keen efforts are needed to succeed with the new challenges of Argus. You’ll find dozens of new missions, along with new Troop types, and an increase in your Champions’ item level to 950.

Dungeons

Loot dropped in Normal, Heroic, and Mythic dungeons is now increased in power by 20 item levels:

• Normal: item level 845
• Heroic: item level 865
• Mythic: item level 885

Mythic Keystone rewards scale up to a maximum of item level 915 in the dungeon, and item level 935 in the weekly chest, both capped at Mythic Keystone 10. This cap in will increase to Mythic Keystone 15 at a future date.

The difficulty of Heroic and Mythic dungeons has increased to reflect the improved rewards. Normal dungeon difficulty is unchanged.

Continuing with its Reveal Ceremony at Gamescom 2017, Blizzard’s development team for World of Warcraft unveiled patch 7.3 which is called Shadows of Argus. After battling the Legion and seeing several heroes fall, the heroes of WoW will now be taking the fight to the Legion itself on their home planet Argus.

As a major content update for World of Warcraft: Legion, players will venture to Argus and look to unseat the villainous Legion once and for all. They won’t be doing so alone as the Army of the Light will fight alongside players against the Legion. New demons will be encountered, more powerful than anything seen before, and there will be brand new areas to explore.

The newest raid for Shadows of Argus will go live later this year and players will keep busy with new story content and world quests in the meantime. Other features include a revamped Artifact system for more customization; Invasion Points where players will travel through portals to battle the Legion in different places throughout the galaxy; new in-game cinematics to better tell the story (the first of which can be viewed below); and much more.

World of Warcraft: Legion’s Shadows of Argus will release on August 29th worldwide.

If you’re testing out the new story content in World of Warcraft: Legion, then you’ll be happy to know that even more has arrived on Blizzard’s Public Test Realm server.

Following patch 7.2.5, patch 7.3 is a “very story-driven update” which brings even more content to the new location Argus. You’ll have access on PTR to one of the main areas along with select story chapters. Though flying isn’t possible on Argus, teleportation is still possible via the base of operations of Vindicaar.

The PTR brings other changes like to the Shadow Priest, new casting animations for Restoration Druids and Shaman, Elemental Shaman and Holy Priests among others and so on. Check out the full patch notes below for more information on what the final iteration of patch 7.3 will offer.

What are your thoughts on World of Warcraft: Legion especially with new content still coming so many months after launch? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.

• Further chapters of the Argus storyline, including many cinematic story moments
• New World Quests
• Professions updates, including epic gems
• The Netherlight Crucible, which allows you to upgrade your Artifact to unlock a new way to customize your Relics
• New dungeon: Seat of the Triumvirate
• New raid: Antorus, the Burning Throne (though as with other Legion raids, it won’t be released immediately with 7.3)
• Invasion Points, a new type of replayable content that let you fight the Legion on multiple different worlds
• Several other improvements and updates to existing features

A new patch for World of Warcraft: Legion is out now on the Public Testing Realm. Patch 7.1 introduces a lot of hotfixes, features, and changes to the game. One of the most notable of these is that users playing the game on a higher resolution, such as 2K or 4K resolutions, will no longer have to suffer the ignonimy of a freakishly small cursor on the screen.

That apart, this remains a relatively lower profile update for the game, after how far reaching the past few ones have been. You can check out the list of changes below. World of Warcraft: Legion is available on PC now.

World of Warcraft Legion October 12 Hotfixes

Class Halls

General and LocalDefense chat channels are now functioning properly in the Shaman Class Hall.

Dungeons and Raids

In Mythic Keystone dungeons, Shadow Priests who die due to Surrender to Madness expiring should no longer incur a 5 second time penalty.

Emerald Nightmare

Heart of Corruption

On Mythic difficulty, the Corruptor Tentacle that previously spawned at 225 seconds into the fight now spawns at 235 seconds, and the Deathglare Tentacle that previously spawned at 240 seconds into the fight now spawns at 250 seconds.

Items rewarded from emissary bags now more closely match the quality of World Quest rewards.

The Spear of Rethu polearm now scales properly from character level 1 to 100, now properly appears in the heirloom list, and is now correctly a 2-handed weapon.

Quests

Oculeth no longer disappears after completing the quest “Arcan’dor, Gift of the Ancient Magi.”

New PvP Achievements

• Alive for Five Reach Prestige Level 5.
• Crest of Heroism Reach Prestige level 6 and earn a Crest of Heroism.
• Crest of Heroism Reach Prestige level 6 and earn a Crest of Heroism.
• Don’t Hate, Grind to Eight Reach Prestige Level 8.
• Free For All, More For Me Complete the achievements listed below.
  Reward: Prestigious War Mount
• Hell, It’s About Nine Reach Prestige Level 9.
• Mission Accomplished Complete Operation Murloc Freedom 20 times.
• Off the Top Rook Complete Black Rook Rumble 20 times.
• Saddle Sore Complete Bareback Brawl 20 times.
• Slayin’ to Seven Reach Prestige Level 7.
• The Darkbrul-oh Complete Darkbrul Arena 20 times.
• The River Six Reach Prestige Level 6.

(achievements via Wowhead)

Looks like people are returning to World of Warcraft: Legion en masse. According to an interview that Polish gaming magazine Pixel (via Reddit) had with game director Tom Chilton, World of Warcraft‘s subscriber numbers spiked to a massive 10 million in the wake of the launch of World of Warcraft: Legion. Given that Legion is widely being considered as one of the best expansions for World of Warcraft, and certainly the best in a very long time, that is not surprising at all.

“Currently, [the subscriber numbers are] around 10.1 million,” Chilton said (translation by NeoGAF). “You know, it’s difficult to say what the future will bring. We have an internal competitor – Overwatch but it’s possible it’ll get even higher than 12 million.”

His confidence may not be unfounded- the incredible player reception to Legion probably ensures that players will stick around, unlike what happened with Warlords of Draenor, the previous expansion which saw a similar spike after its release, followed shortly by a catastrophic decline. The decline was one of the reasons that Blizzard stopped announcing World of Warcraft numbers– a policy that they are sticking to even in the wake of Legion‘s apparent success, because they have refuted these numbers in a new report.

“This was a misquote, or some kind of misunderstanding on the part of the journalist,” Blizzard told PCGamer. “Our policy for almost a year now is that we do not talk about subscriber numbers, and Tom did not do that with this publication.”

World of Warcraft: Legion is available now on PC.

Ask a few fans of World of WarCraft what the best section the long running MMO is, and you’ll probably get a lot of different answers. The nostalgic old timers, likely long since departed from the game, will say it’s the original vanilla release. Players that came in a few years ago will likely point to Wrath of the Lich King, the height of the game’s commercial success, when it was pulling in excess of 12 million subscribers. Those who came in more recently will probably cite Mists of Pandaria, the game that began to rebuild player trust after Cataclysm’s disappointing second half.

"You don’t have to be familiar with WoW’s lore to understand Legion’s story; the game does a good job of explaining it to you. But this respect for previous aspects of WarCraft’s lore, and the ease with which it explains and builds on it, makes Legion a great place for new players to jump into the game."

But the ones who have been with the game since Vanilla, and still play, will likely tell you it was The Burning Crusade, and I admit, it’s my personal favorite period of the game. The Burning Crusade was a turning point in both MMO design and WoW’s history, expanding on the original release while also improving it. Blizzard threw out much of the original game’s mechanics and structures(40 man raids, faction exclusive classes) and brought in WarCraft’s varied lore, a greatly improved quest system, better zone structure, the 10 and 25 man raid, daily quests, and more complex encounter design. It also marked some of the best endgame content to ever grace the genre, and properly introduced fan-favorite character Illidan Stormrage and The Burning Legion, the most important of WarCraft’s perennial foes, to the MMO.

While the story of Legion could not have happened without the more recent expansions, especially Warlords of Draenor, it feels like a direct sequel to Burning Crusade: the Legion, a host of interdimensional demons bent on wiping out all life, are back, and the events of The Burning Crusade, especially Illidan’s death, are reframed and made incredibly important. What’s here is compelling: major characters die, the world changes, and you fail.

You don’t have to be familiar with WoW’s lore to understand Legion’s story; the game does a good job of explaining it to you. But this respect for previous aspects of WarCraft’s lore, and the ease with which it explains and builds on it, makes Legion a great place for new players to jump into the World of WarCraft and for lapsed players to return to it. It also allows Blizzard to make some core changes and additions to the game, many of which form the backbone of Legion.

"I’ve rarely had as much fun with another class as I have playing a Demon Hunter, and they’re a strong addition to the game."

The most obvious addition is the Demon Hunter class. Available to both night Elves and Blood Elves, the class is fast and powerful, equipped with damaging dashes and escapes, eye beams, quick glaive strikes and tosses, and the ability to transform into a full-blown demon. Unlike most classes, this limits what Demon Hunters can do, and as a result they only have two specs: Havoc (damage) and Vengeance (tanking), each with different resources, called Fury and Pain, respectively. Regardless, I’ve rarely had as much fun with another class as I have playing a Demon Hunter, and they’re a strong addition to the game.

You’ll learn to play the class in the Demon Hunter’s starting zone, which chronicles the struggles of a group of Demon Hunters as they assault a world controlled by The Burning Legion. In an interesting twist, the assault takes place during events in The Burning Crusade, as the Black Temple is being attacked by the raid group that ends up taking down Illidan, providing a race against time that remains engaging even if you know the outcome. The starting zone is extremely compelling and Blizzard uses it to teach you to play the class quite well, which is good because Demon Hunters start at level 98. By the end of the zone, you’ll be level 100, and dumped into Legion’s new content in the Broken Isles.

For all of its flaws, Warlords of Draenor had excellent questing and zones to do it in, so Legion had a lot to live up to. While Legion’s quest content doesn’t quite match up to the high bar Warlords set, it does feature some of the best quest content in the game. Every zone, from Azsuna to Suramar, is visually distinct and self-contained, offering its own storylines that remain specific to the zone but fold into the larger narrative, which requires players to obtain a number of powerful artifacts known as the Pillars of Creation to take down the Burning Legion.

"Every zone, from Azsuna to Suramar, is visually distinct and self-contained, offering its own storylines that remain specific to the zone but fold into the larger narrative."

Even better, the content each zone provides is genuinely satisfying and well-executed. Even the “worst” zone, Azsuna, suffers from more from having a series of fragmented storylines that don’t connect as well as they could, than from any serious issues with the individual stories or areas. In a new twist, the zones (save Suramar, which is locked until you hit 110) can be completed in any order as their difficulty scales to your level, so you can leveling multiple characters differently.

The storyline for most zones ends in one of Legion’s dungeons, which are fairly strong. Some are a little weaker than others (I’m looking at you, Eye of Azshara) but others, such as Maw of Souls, are extremely well-designed. Thankfully, Legion has 10 dungeons to choose from out of the gate, and the normal, Heroic, Mythic and new Mythic + difficulties mean that everyone should find at least a few dungeons they enjoy at the right level of challenge.

Like the zones, many dungeons can be completed at any level and will scale, ensuring that level 98 and 110 characters can run the normal versions together, and that each player is facing enemies that are appropriate for their individual levels. It’s a masterful bit of programming on Blizzard’s part, and I’m pleased to report that it works wonderfully.

"Part Garrison from Warlords, part hangout, Class Halls are your home away from home, and each is exclusive to a specific class."

All of this, the zones and group content, is held together by Class Halls. Part Garrison from Warlords, part hangout, Class Halls are your home away from home, and each is exclusive to a specific class. Demon Hunters, for instance, take control of a Burning Legion ship, while Mages reopen the Hall of Guardian, home of Azeroth’s most powerful spellcasters. Each is distinct, and well-themed, and the presence of other players means that, unlike Garrisons, you feel like you’re part of a community when you spend time in one.

Like Garrisons, Class Halls allow you to recruit class specific followers and send them on missions. This time, though, there’s far less of both, meaning you won’t be spending all of your time min-maxing the whole thing. They also allow you to upgrade your Artifacts, weapons stepped in lore and unique to certain classes.

Each class has one for each of their specializations, and each can be upgraded so that it matches your level. You acquire them by completing short questlines, many of which take you back to old areas and involve encounters with lore important figures. All of the ones I did were great fun and felt right for each class, and at the end of the day it’s cool to see your character running around with the Ashbringer, the Doomhammer, or shards from Frostmourne.

"Each class has an Artifact for each of their specializations, and each can be upgraded so that it matches your level. You acquire them by completing short questlines, many of which take you back to old areas and involve encounters with lore important figures."

The fact that they are upgradeable means that you won’t need to worry about getting more weapons once you acquire all of your artifacts, but it also gives you a level of customization regarding your spec that hasn’t been in the game since the talent system changed way back in Mists. Artifacts gain experience and levels, allowing you to invest in upgraded abilities, and attach gems that offer stat boosts. It’s a great system, and it brings back a level of nuance that the game was sorely missing.

World Quests are another interesting new feature. Upon hitting level 110 and reaching friendly with all of the game’s factions, you’ll have access to quests that appear around the world and allow you to gain reputation with said factions. These are generally short diversions designed to replace the rep grinds of daily quests and slaying mobs to gain rep. While it remains to be seen how well it will hold up in the long run, so far they are a welcome change that add diversity and brevity to one of WoW’s most grindy segments.

The last major overhaul is the new honor system. Gear has been normalized in Legion PVP, meaning you won’t be at a huge disadvantage if you enter a battleground because some guy on the other team has better gear than you. Instead, Honor gained from PVP now functions as a way to unlock PVP-specific talents. It will take some time for class balance to even out before we know how well the new system works, but it’s nice to see Blizzard being proactive about a problem that’s plagued the game for more than a decade, instead of trying to once again prop up a failing system.

"Legion is off to a strong start, with new mechanics, overhauled gameplay, and well-designed areas, dungeons, and quests."

It’s hard to review MMOs. I’ve spent more than 1500 words describing Legion, and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what the game has to offer. Heck, I haven’t even addressed the changes to professions, which are all tied to interesting questlines and offer items that get better the more you craft them, or Legion’s raid content, which just unlocked. I haven’t sampled Legion’s raids yet, but the rest of the expansion gives me hope. At the very least, having two at the start of the expansion means we’ll probably avoid the three raid debacle that Warlords suffered through.

And yet, none of that makes reviewing a MMO any easier. If you’d asked me if I thought Warlords was going to be a good expansion at launch, I would have said yes. In fact, I think most people would have, and we all know how that turned out. Despite that, I have high hopes for Legion. Right now, it’s shaping up to be one of WoW’s strongest eras. We don’t know how we’ll look back at Legion yet. But it is off to a strong start, with new mechanics, overhauled gameplay, and well-designed areas, dungeons, and quests. And Blizzard is promising much more content, having already released trailers and previews for the first of what appears to be many major patches. If nothing else, they won’t repeat the failures of Warlords of Draenor again.

Still, Legion isn’t a complete home run. Basic problems still persist: some classes are over and undertuned, and certain zones and dungeons aren’t as strong as others (though none are outright bad), but when compared to all the things Legion does right, they’re minor complaints. We may not know how this story ends, not yet, but there’s an air of finality to Legion that’s intriguing, and I haven’t been this excited to log into the game in a long time. WarCraft’s best bad guys have returned, and right now, so far, that’s enough.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Companion apps were, for a while, all the rage for major AAA game releases, before they sort of… faded away. But the good companion apps genuinely ended up contributing to the games they were made for, so the concept itself isn’t flawed- as long as the actual app has some legitimate utility, companion apps are perfectly fine.

Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Legion is getting a companion app that appears to be one of those actually useful ones. The new app allows players to track their followers and issue orders to them, and to alter your abilities at your Order Hall, and also to send party members on quests. Once you hit level 110, you will also get the power to browse World Quests.

The World of Warcraft: Legion companion app is going to be made available on iOS and Android smartphones. You can check out the launch trailer for it for yourself below.

Blizzard Entertainment had the number one selling among all platforms in the UK this past week but it wasn’t the recently released World of Warcraft: Legion expansion. No, instead Overwatch – it’s team based hero shooter – reclaimed the top spot following a price drop according to Gfk Chart-Track.

This makes it the fourth week at number one for the shooter. Second place was reserved for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, whose sales dropped by 72 percent, with Legion at third place. The new expansion actually saw fewer boxed sales than Warlords of Draenor (Chart-Track doesn’t keep tabs on digital sales) but it was still the biggest new release this week. F1 2016 is in fourth place ahead of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.

Despite an increase in sales, Grand Theft Auto 5 is in sixth place while No Man’s Sky sales dropped by 36 percent to put it in seventh place. LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still going strong at eighth while Rocket League is in ninth places and Madden NFL 17 is in tenth. Other new releases include The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Game of the Year Edition is 17th place.