Grinding Gear Games, the Developer behind the awesome Path of Exile, announced that they are halfway through the Open Beta period for their Action RPG with 9 Major Patches and 24 minor patches deployed. They are now ready to usher in one of their biggest patches to date to bring the second half of Open Beta to the community. This will be patch 0.11.0 and contains a large amount of content including:

  • new four-month leagues with special rules
  • exclusive Challenges with prizes
  • major balance changes relating to monster damage and player life values
  • the introduction of item allocation options
  • toggleable mini health-bars
  • a new currency item 

The new leagues for Path of Exile, will start on June 7. The Anarchy and Onslaught leagues, the two new ones, each have their own properties that make them distinct from the Standard and Hardcore leagues you’ve been playing in so far. They also contain slightly different items! Some base types only drop in Anarchy or Onslaught and some base types can’t drop there. Certain Unique items are not available in Anarchy/Onslaught leagues and if you’re lucky, you can find Anarchy-specific and Onslaught-specific Uniques. We’re also introducing a system of difficult goals specific to these new leagues called Challenges. They’re designed to take a lot of effort, but we’re sure many people will complete them all before we release Act 3X in October!

Also new are Challenges (Achievements). The eight initial Challenges are:

  • Slay the 13 rogue exiles (Anarchy only). 
  • Reach level 60 on each character class (Onslaught only).
  • Use a Map of every type in the Map Device.
  • Allocate all of the notable and keystone passives.
  • Receive 34 specific items from vendor recipes.
  • Full-clear each non-Map area in any difficulty.
  • Use all currency items (excluding Mirror of Kalandra).
  • Own a specific set of 90 Unique items at the same time. If you trade any away before the end of the league, you’ll need to get them again for the challenge to count.
  • The number of Challenges you’ve completed is tracked. We’re planning to display it on your forum posts and next to your name when chatting in these leagues. If you complete all eight Challenges and hold them until the leagues end on October 8, we’ll ship you an exclusive t-shirt!

Capcom has revealed that DuckTales Remastered will be coming to the PC Platform this Summer for $14.99. It will launch on Steam, Origin, Impulse, GamersGate, Green Man Gaming, and even other services. The PC version will “ship around the same window” as the Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Wii U platforms. This is normally code for, it will be late compared to the other versions.

Zynga has laid off a ton of employees this week. One of these companies is OMGPOP who was best known for the Draw Something franchise. Zynga had paid 200 million to acquire OMGPOP. I guess money must grow on trees at Zynga because they sure seem to throw money away. Perhaps they burn it to stay warm in the winter? Shame that someone who is more in touch couldn’t run the company or make better day to day decisions on how to grow themselves without overpaying for failed properties.

DC has revealed that they will be returning to motion comics and plan to make sure they aren’t as horrible as their first attempt years ago. DC2, known as the Second Generation of Dynamic Content, is set to bring storytelling to a brand new level.

The first title to feature the DC2 overhaul will be Batman ‘66 this summer. The best part of this technology is that you will be able to “Choose your own adventure” and follow the story the way you want to. Will you chase down the Joker or go get Harley? If the wrong path is chosen, you lose and have to start over. Being a superhero isn’t as easy as you would think.

No words on what platforms DC2 will appear on. We look forward to learning more in the comings days.

Ready for more Deus Ex? The new title Deux Ex: The Fall is ready to be unleashed upon the world. A teaser, “Are you ready to begin?” is all we have to go on right now.

Are you a fan of Rock Band? CEO of Harmonix, and Rockband creators, Alex Rigopulos, said this about the franchise:
“‘I’ll also say that we don’t view Rock Band as something that’s being left behind. It’s something we’ll return to at the right point in time and reimagine it as appropriate for its time.”

Can he time be right anytime soon? PLEASE?????

Xbox 360 owners will be getting an update to a classic this fall. Lionhead Studios is bringing Fable HD to life on the Unreal 3 Engine and looks to completely overhaul the original game. Lionhead just relaunched their forums for Fable. Also, there is a rumored Fable IV coming to Xbox One in the works as well.

By Kaleb Rutherford – 06/05/13