Topical Grab Bag

Hey Friends. This morning I didn’t really have a big topic to talk about but instead a bunch of smaller topics so as such you are getting a bit of a grab bag post. Right now I have found myself between games and as such I spent pretty much all last night playing around in Minecraft. However this morning I am realizing there were things I potentially should have been doing.

Resident Evil x The Division 2

Two weeks ago it was announced that there was going to be a cross over between Resident Evil and The Division, and the problem with announcing something that far ahead of time… is I forget about it. This morning I found out that this event apparently started on the 2nd of February and runs until the 15th. During that time you can earn five different iconic outfits from the Resident Evil franchise. You can see that I have on the Leon Kennedy outfit from Resident Evil 2. Also available during the event are:

There are also a number of arm patches and back trophies available as well as a Nemesis mask pending you collect all of the nonsense. There is an official post with a run down of the information over on the Ubisoft website. It sounds like every four SHD levels you gain during the event you pick up a key that unlocks an item from the event. You can also directly purchase keys for 100 premium currency which equates to $0.76 per key when buying the $49.99 packs of currency or $0.99 per key when purchasing the cheapest $4.99 pack. There are 21 key unlocks in total available and if you want to “catch em all” you will need to either grind out 84 SHD levels before the 15th or spend the equivalent of $15.96 to $20.79 to buy enough keys to unlock everything. You need 2100 currency to buy all the keys and I feel like this is a strategic number because there is a $19.99 pack that gives you 2250.

No Diablo 4 in 2021

Yesterday I read a PC Gamer article giving a rundown of the ActiBlizz investors call for Q4 2020. During that call it was apparently clarified that neither Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2 were planned to release during the calendar year 2021. The specific quote is as follows:

“We expect Blizzard’s net booking to grow, given the momentum in World of Warcraft and the other growth initiatives we have in the business,” Activision chief financial officer Dennis Durkin said during the call. “Our outlook does not include Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2 launching in 2021.”
Andy Chalk via PC Gamer

I have to admit that this largely craters my expectations and excitement for BlizzConline. I mean sure it is completely free this year since it is an online version of the show that would have happened in 2020 were that not such a dumpster fire of a year. It isn’t honestly like 2021 has been that much better so far. I am still going to tune in and watch but I have bottomed out my expectations, given that I legitimately thought we would get a release date and maybe demo announcement for Diablo 4. The truth however is that they are nowhere near as far along in the development process as I would have thought.

What I do think however is that we are probably going to get a same day shadow drop of Diablo Immortal on mobile storefronts. This statement in an Investors call is a pretty safe way of getting the information out there without making a big deal about it. I think this is some adept expectation setting so that there is not a repeat of the 2018 “Don’t You Have Phones?” incident. I am going to be honest, I am looking forward to Diablo Immortal because I have gotten to the point where I play a fair amount of mobile games before bedtime. If it gives me effectively Diablo 3 on my phone, I am more than happy to oblige with a download.

Uncanniest Valley

Lastly and I tweeted about this yesterday, but this “FemShep” model is freaking me the hell out. This looks almost exactly like someone that I work with. Her name is Michelle and she is a project manager, and super nice. I had said that I was going to go with playing the stock Female Shepard during my play through of Legendary Edition in May, but now I am not so certain how exactly I feel about this. I will have to see what the other options are for both Male and Female Shepard before I ultimately make a decision. I am just not sure if I am comfortable playing as the doppelganger of someone that I actually know.

I realize there is zero connection between this person that I know and the actual game and it is just a quirk of trying to make the in game model skew a little closer to the Iconic artwork. However it still weirds me the hell out.