Diablo III: Reaper Of Souls Sets Scythes On Release

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls' closed beta is now in full swing, and that colloquialism makes it sound like everyone's singing and dancing along to big band music instead of hacking and slashing. If only that were the case. If only. But the clickity clacking Second Coming Of Loot is inching ever closer to completion, so Blizzard's seen fit to issue a release date. That's how game development works, doncha know. So then, got plans for March? Well, CANCEL THEM. Or don't, because letting videogames dictate the pace and structure of your life probably isn't very healthy.

Reaper of Souls will launch on March 25th. It'll come in two flavors: standard and digital deluxe. The former is simply the expansion sans bells and whistles, and it'll run you $39.99. The latter, meanwhile, will weigh in at a beefy $59.99, which is maybe kinda too much for a spectral hound minion, a pet in another game (WoW), and some character portraits for yet another different game (StarCraft II). In fact, I would go so far as to say that's a terrible deal. Yikes.

At least the expansion itself is nicely content-rich. Among other things, it offers the Crusader class, a whole new Act to play through, Adventure mode and its randomized Nephalem Rifts, and the much-discussed Loot 2.0 system. However, despite the upcoming removal of Diablo III's vilest devil, the Auction House, Reaper of Souls won't include any sort of offline functionality. Blizzard somewhat dismissively tried to explain why during BlizzCon, but I personally found its reasoning to be more full of holes than a hot air balloon filled with porcupines. Most talking points crashed and burned, but Blizzard stood by them.

That in mind, I suppose all we can do at this point is hope the newly revamped game justifies the hassle. I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is. Is anyone here playing the beta at the moment? How is it?