[GameSpot] - Diablo Immortal Will Soon Have 4 Limited-Time Events Happening All At Once

[343iBot]

Diablo Immortal's next "mini-update" is set to introduce a slew of limited-time events into Blizzard's free-to-play mobile game, but it may be changes to multiplayer requirements for high-difficulty dungeons that will interest players the most.

Headlining the new update, which goes live August 17, is the new Fractured Plane limited-time event. As detailed in a new Blizzard blog, the Fractured Plane will task players with overcoming a 15-floor gauntlet, albeit with a catch. Entering the event will replace a player's existing loadouts with a selection of pre-selected skills. From there, players will discover temporary legendary gear to use over the course of the run. Players who conquer all 15 floors without dying more than five times will be able to select six legendary items discovered during the run, and then receive one of those six at random as a reward.

Blizzard writes that the event is a way of getting players to try new skills and items they wouldn't normally use, and provides "players with an opportunity to start from scratch to see how well they can play their class no matter the circumstances." No end date for the Fractured Plane event is given in Blizzard's patch notes.

The Fractured Plane is just the beginning of the limited-time events that will come to Diablo Immortal in the next few weeks. For the PvP-minded, the new Echo of the Immortal event--which will run from August 17-September 14--will let players get a taste of what being one of the game's titular Immortals feels like. The 15-player battleground will see one player selected at random to become an Immortal, a powerful boss character. It will be up to the other 14 players to bring the Immortal down to size, after which the battleground becomes a free-for-all for loot.

In case two limited-time events aren't enough, there are still two more. The game's Into the Dark Wood event will run from August 17-31 and ask players to complete daily tasks in order unlock special rewards, while the return of the game's Hungering Moon event from August 26-29 will see players completing quests to earn blessings that can be traded for various items.

That's a lot of events, though a change to the game's dungeons will perhaps excite players the most. Dungeon and Hidden Lairs on Hell Two difficulty or higher will no longer require four players to enter, and can instead be entered with two or three. The dungeon or lair's difficulty, however, will still be scaled to four people. Blizzard states it has listened to player feedback about the four-player-requirement being too restrictive, and want them to be more accessible. Players have recently complained about being unable to find other adventurers to group with at higher difficulties, thus making the dungeons inaccessible, so this is likely to be a welcome, if somewhat overdue, change.

Though the changes in this particular update to Warbands are minor--a renaming of the Codex step requiring starting a Warband and the removal of the Hero's Journey step requiring 10 Warband chests--Blizzard notes that in the future it wants to "create Warband content that provides fun and rewarding experiences as incentives for playing with a small group of friends," but that doesn't punish players who opt out of the feature. In addition to the changes listed above, Diablo Immortal's latest patch will introduce six new legendary items for each class.

Blizzard has stated Diablo Immortal will receive new content, either in the form of a major or mini-update, every two weeks, and recently made it so players can change their character's class for free on a weekly basis.

Diablo Immortal has drawn criticism for its microtransactions, but that hasn't stopped the game from reportedly earning more than $100 million so far. Though the next entry in the series, Diablo IV, will have an in-game shop that will sell microtransactions, Blizzard has clarified that it will only offer cosmetics, with no way for players to increase their power by spending money.

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