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MMO Weekly Recap #444 March 5th – Paladins Reveals Octavia, WoT Steel Hunter Returns, & More!

JamesBl0nde recaps the MMO gaming news for the week of March 5, 2021! Transcript follows.


Valorant’s new agent uses the power of the cosmos, slow down and take aim with the latest champion in paladins, Black Desert celebrates pretty big for 5 years running and nows a good time to play Apex Legends because you never really know with Chaos Theory

What’s good everyone, JamesBl0nde here with the weekly recap for gaming news and announcements for the week of March 5th 2021 and starting out the news this week

Primordials: Battle of Gods has finally launched on Steam and the Epic Games Store as a free to play game. And just to get you up to speed, Primordials is a strategy game where you choose three champions, an army, and a primordial god to combine their powers and tactics in a 1v1 duel. Like is common in other free to play competitive games, Primordials, Champions, and Armies are on rotation but can be earned or purchased to keep permanently. Luckily those players who purchased the game while it was in Early Access will get all of these unlocked already, along with many future skins. It’s free so, might as well download it and give it a shot right?

Meanwhile Valorant has kicked off its next Act for Episode 2, and that means it’s time for a new Agent to debut. Meet Astra, a Controller that uses the power of the cosmos to stay ahead of her enemies. Astra can enter an astral form, allowing her an overview of the map where she can place stars down. These stars can then be activated to stun enemies, pull them in through gravity, or deploy smoke and move the star to a new location. The new Act also features a new weapon skin bundle, more improvements to the game’s matchmaking system, and new tactical voice over commands.

Also in major updates, Legends of Runeterra has launched its expansion, Empires of the Ascended, this week, which introduces the new Shurima region. The expansion also includes nine champions and over 110 cards, plus new keywords: countdown, predict, and reputation. There’s way more to this update than I can easily go over here in a minute, so make sure to check out the full patch notes for an in-depth overview of the meta changes, new lab, new cosmetics and more.

Paladins has revealed details about its next upcoming champion, Octavia the Indomitable! With trust in her soldiers and unbreakable determination, Octavia fills the damage role as a marksman with a semi-automatic rifle. That rifle comes with a sight, which increases accuracy while lowering movement speed, but which also can stop your movement mid air for a couple of seconds and see enemies through distortion fields! She can also create her own Distortion fields to hide allies from sight and slows enemies trapped within. And be warned, her ultimate includes a barrage of laser beams – not something you want to get caught in! The future update will also include some improvements to the Battle Pass system and a new challenge system so make sure to stay tuned for the patch when it goes live.

Also new this week is the Frozen Canyon update for Cabal Online. The leading part of this update is, of course, the Frozen Canyon dungeon, a brand new dungeon for players at or above level 190. The update also introduces the Ultimate Epic Booster to grant additional powers to use on ultimate gear, plus secondary quick slots, new essence runes, mass purchase from NPCs, and more. Patch notes are linked here if you want to find out more.

It’s time again for a new character in Genshin Impact, and taking the stage this week is the spooky Funeral Parlor Director, Hu Tao. This 5 Star Pyro polearm user is a primary damage dealer that uses her hit points to power her attacks and leaves Pyro damage over time effects on the enemies she hits. Plus she can use her ultimate to heal back up while doing some major AoE damage. And as players are rolling for their chance to get this new character, the game is also kicking off its “Vishaps and Where to Find them” expedition event, which lets players send their characters out to earn primogems and other bonus rewards each day.

Meanwhile the console versions of Star Trek Online are ready for a new era of Klingon updates as they have just received the House Reborn update, originally launched on PC at the end of January. The update introduces two new Episodes, “Knowledge is Power” and “Leap of Faith,” a new Klingon Recruitment system, and a full remaster for all Klingon Captain exclusive missions. STO has also added Cross Faction flying, allowing Federation Captains to command Klingon ships and vice versa, so long as the player has a level 65 Klingon character,  adding new flexibility for captains.

And the tanks just keep rolling as World of Tanks pushes out its Update 1.12, continuing to focus on game improvements. First up in this update is the rebalancing of four premium Tier 8 Vehicles, making it easier for each tank to perform their role in battle. Next up is a collection of interface improvements, from seeing team HP in battle to setting default zoom levels. And finally, Steel Hunter, a battle royale style mode, is making its return with rebalanced vehicles, new modules, and more.

Next up, Black Desert Online, which has just started its self-publishing service under its developer Pearl Abyss, is celebrating its 5th anniversary now through the end of this month, with special in game events and rewards just for logging in. But as part of the celebrations, the BDO team also ran a special live stream event that revealed some things coming soon to the MMO. Details about the upcoming dungeon Atoraxxion were revealed, an open dungeon that will have players meet up with other Adventurers and group up, working as a team to defeat monsters and solve puzzles. The stream also gave a sneak peek at the new Sage class, set to arrive on March 24th, and the Arena of Arsha, an in-game championship event. To top things off, Pearl Abyss has been offering the game for free up until March 10th, so you still have a couple of days to grab this MMO to keep!

And speaking of celebrations, Apex Legends is getting ready to set off a new event next week, revealing the Chaos Theory Collection Event. Timed to start on Tuesday, March 9th, the new event coincides with the launch of Apex Legends on the Switch. In fact if you have a Switch and haven’t tried Apex Legends out yet you might want to – EA is granting players 30 free levels of the current Season 8 Battle Pass, plus double experience for two weeks! Its not bad! In addition to that, you can check out the Caustic Tower Takeover, Ring Fury Escalation Takeover, Heat Shields and Survival Slot mechanics, and more. EA’s also introducing a new “no-fill” matchmaking, where you can queue solo into un-ranked duos or trios, and play as a team of one against the other teams. Great for those days you just don’t want to deal with other people.

Finally let’s talk about Epic Games Store’s free game of the week – which is Wargame: Red Dragon. This one’s for all you RTS fans out there, as it’s a highly rated game in the Wargame series. Set in 1991, where 17 nations battle in a theatre between western forces and the communist bloc. The game includes a dynamic campaign and 20 man multiplayer so it’s definitely worth grabbing this game from 2014 for free if you enjoy modern warfare games.

But with that said, that’s about it for all the major news and announcements for this week. Be sure to stay safe, and keep your families healthy! Like always you can find more information on the news topics, linked in the description below, feel free to discuss the news or even more news in the comments below and don’t forget to like, subscribe, wash your hands a bunch, hit that little bell icon to get notifications and of course share this video! But until next time guys that’s going to be it for me… I’m JamesBl0nde… see ya out there gamers!

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