Weekly Recap #491 April 15th – FFXIV 6.1, Hearthstone Year of the Hydra, SMITE Yu Huang & More!

JamesBl0nde recaps the MMO gaming news for the week of April 15, 2022! Transcript follows.

Get stuck in Eternal Winter in Black Desert Online, Warframe now has a release date for the Angels of the Zariman expansion, the 6.1 patch for Final Fantasy XIV is so big its scary and Smite just revealed the first Chinese god in over two years!

What’s good everyone, JamesBl0nde here with the weekly recap for gaming news and announcements for the week of April 15th, 2022 and

Fractured Online’s closed beta has officially begun, starting on April 6th and welcoming players to explore a new region, multiple events, and the game’s core gameplay in order to offer feedback to its developer, Dynamight Studios. While we talked about all that in the last recap, Dynamight Studios has also put out a new roadmap this past week highlighting key development plans leading up to the game’s planned launch in winter 2022. Next up are seasons and leaderboards, and in Summer, the Wildfolk race, a new planet, and end game PvP will be added. Autumn 2022 will add the Demon race, another new planet, religion systems, and expand the crafting system. Make sure to keep an eye out on all of that and remember you can get into the closed beta by buying a founder’s pack.

Next up Warframe revealed a new trailer for its upcoming Angels of the Zariman expansion last week in another developer stream, and this time they included a release date: April 27th! The expansion expands on the cinematic quest of the game, along with introducing the new Warframe Gyre, new mission types, customizable housing, and new exclusive accessories. The stream revealed the second of these new mission types – Void Cascade – along with more details about the new Dormizones housing system on the Zariman Ten Zero, new evolving weapons, and even more. Keep an eye out for this update landing at the end of this month!

If you’ve been following V Rising, you’ll be happy to know an Early Access release date has finally been given!  In case you’re not aware, V Rising is an open-world survival game where you play as a vampire trying to carve a name for yourself.  The Early Access will feature four different regions for players to explore, each with their own perils and powers to obtain.  The game features tons of environmental storytelling and fast-paced ARPG style combat, so come May 17th, you’ll be able to conquer the lands of Vardoran yourself!

Meanwhile Black Desert Online’s newest expansion, Eternal Winter, went live last week on April 6th! This expansion includes the new region Mountain of Eternal Winter, where players can discover new hunting grounds, boss fights, ice fishing, and more. The expansion also includes the female Drakania class that wields Slayer and Shard to destroy her enemies. This expansion is available as a free update to all existing players, so if you have the game, log in and check it out!

Final Fantasy 14 players are getting to enjoy a brand new content patch, as Patch 6.1 A Newfound Adventure launched this week! There’s a lot contained in this patch so you may want to hit the link below for a better overview, but in summary – there’s new main scenario quests for players to uncover, there’s a new 24-player alliance raid in the Myths of the Realm series, a new dungeon, a new Unreal trial, a new set of tribe quests, the long awaited Ishgardian residential district, major revisions to the duty finder for all 2.x dungeons and trials, small scale PvP, and much more, whew!

Next up the finale for RuneScape’s Elder God Wars saga has finally become available, giving players the chance to experience a crucial endgame quest. Extinction is the first GrandMaster Quest since 2016, and features combat arenas with new skilling areas, high tier resources, and exciting new rewards. This marks the conclusion of the 20th anniversary celebrations for RuneScape but I’m sure players are already looking forward to the next epic tale.

Well it looks like it’s time to save the DC Universe in the latest update to DC Universe Online: Dark Knights!  Perpetua must be stopped from destroying the entire multiverse, and it’s up to you to team up with the iconic DC superheroes to do so!  Featuring new daily and weekly open world missions, Dark Knights will also challenge you with new duo, alert, and raid dungeons as the heroes seek a means to cut off Perpetua’s power.  Expect all new rewards, feats, gear, and more throughout the episode.  For a limited time, all content from this episode will be made specially available for players level 15 and higher, so you won’t miss out on anything even if you’ve just started out!  Dark Knights is free for everyone, along with all other DC Universe Online content, so check it out today.

In other news, PSO2 New Genesis has launched its April update this week, and it comes with quite a bit. First off, the level cap has been raised to 45, which also means there are new high ranked sectors in Retem along with other new challenges. There are new Photon Arts and Compound Techniques available. There’s also a new Party Recruitment system, dedicated photo rooms for those perfect screenshots, and more.

Next up, let’s take a look at part two of the Italian Destroyers update for World of Warships!  The update delivers several new features, such as superships in the tech tree, an all new Italian collection featuring a tier VI ship for free, two Tier X ship brawls, and tons of visual improvements and content changes.  You’ll also be able to earn Division stars with this update by completing various tasks with clanmates.  For example, you can earn three per match by winning the battle, and executing teamwork maneuvers and coordinated attacks.  Look for this and all the new content live now in World of Warships!

GWENT has dropped its 10.4 update this past week, called Forgotten Treasures. This update adds 21 new cards of various types, 16 golds and 5 bronzes. These new cards use existing mechanics of GWENT but are inspired by the Golden Nekker Project, the in-development single player spin-off of the GWENT Witcher Card Game. This card drop was included free as part of the update, but you can also grab a Forgotten Treasures Pack in the in-game store to nab all of the cards in their premium animated versions plus the new Abandoned Laboratory Game Board. Make it quick though – that pack disappears on May 10th.

Meanwhile, The Year of the Hydra has now begun in Hearthstone, as its newest expansion, Voyage to the Sunken City, is now live with 135 new cards to collect! There are two new keywords in this set – Dredge, which lets you peek at the bottom three cards of your deck and pull one – and Colossal, which are minions that are too big to fit on a single card. The set also includes the new Naga type minion, which is focused on boosting spells while in play. The Year of the Hydra also means that the set rotation has changed, moving the Year of the Phoenix expansions to Wild. There’s also new updates for the Core deck so make sure you check it all out before you start a match.

Rogue Company has kicked off Season Two of its Year Two operations this week with the Covert Ops update! This includes the Covert Ops battle pass, featuring some realistic gear for those who like to play it straight, along with the Rambo King Cobra crossover. But more than that, this update shakes up the game with new core mechanics! All Rogues now have a speed value and a toughness value, offering movement speed or reduction, adding new depth to your rogue choice. New efficiency levels for perks have also been added, allowing some rogues to truly specialize in certain perks – and there’s new perks too, like Volatile and Energized. Definitely check out the patch notes linked below for all the details on these game changers.

Also this past week, SMITE revealed its next god – Yu Huang, the Jade Emperor! Yu Huang is a Chinese Mage – the first Chinese god in two years and the first mage in a year, so a welcome addition to the roster for sure! Famous for slaying the demon king, Yu Huang’s passive lets him attune to the Dao, granting him a chain effect on his basic attacks once he reaches six stacks. He can also summon forth phoenix flames causing burns, or slow and root his enemies. He can also call forth a pearl dragon to become untargetable briefly before descending to cause damage, or to duel with his energy dragon to cause a massive explosion. Pretty cool sounding! As a reminder, the RAMBO Ullr skin is also available now for Prime Gaming subscribers – just log in to your Prime Gaming account and check your SMITE gifts to claim this crossover skin!

Also revealed by Hi-Rez this week is the next champion for Paladins: Lilith the Heartless! Lilith will take a support role, capable of healing herself or her allies through shadowy magic while also draining life from her enemies. The update that will bring Lilith will also bring a new event pass, Lost Future, which offers a dark future vision of champions with corrupted skins and cosmetics. Expect new trials and limited time modes to come with that update as well.

On the sci-fi side of things, Star Trek Online announced its newest update this week at Star Trek: Mission Chicago. Called Stormfall, the story in the Mirror Universe alongside Admiral Janeway and Admiral Leeta will continue. Players will also discover a remastered Starfleet tutorial, two new episodes, a new 5-player Task Force Operation, and more. The update will launch on PC May 10th and consoles later in June. Expect to hear much more about this update in the coming weeks!

And of course, spring means that Albion Online is celebrating with a colorful bonanza of festivities.  Chest spawns throughout the world have been significantly increased which means you might get lucky enough to find the Spring Treasure Chest amongst them!  These chests contain a  variety of spring themed items, both old and new.  Colored eggs can also be found, and this year contain much more than previously.  Also new for this year is a brand new Spring Cottontail mount.  This very fast tier 8 mount has one definite unique factor: it can be found, raised, and ridden by anyone regardless of their riding level!  The spring event is live now, so go on an egg hunt in Albion  Online today.

As usual, last up we have the Epic Games Store free games of the week.  This week we have two to bring you: Insurmountable and XCOM 2.  If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to turn mountaineering into a rogue-lite experience, then Insurmountable is just for you!  Climb peaks, brave the cold and wet, and return to base camp safely, growing stronger for each progressive ascent!  XCOM 2 certainly needs no introduction, however, the tactical single player strategy shooter pits your human squad against hordes of aliens hellbent on conquering humanity.  Study their tech, adapt it for your own, and push back these invaders to save mankind!

and 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!