Lost Ark community now has access to a holiday gift pack, and Amazon is assuring all that there will be some additional gifts to ensure you can get fully geared up for the content ahead.

On December 28th, Lost Ark had downtime for the weekly maintenance, with a gift pack full of items after a successful almost a year in Western release. Those who log in between 12/28-3/15/2023 will be able to claim the gifts. However, some players that claimed their gifts noticed inconsistencies in what they got.
The gift pack consists of a series of items:

• 100 Ancient Platinum Coin (each coin contains 20k silver)

• 10 Collective Battle Item Chest

• A Legendary Card Pack Selection Chest

• 100 Pheons

• 10 Magick Society Special Dye Chest

• A Mokoko Skin Selection Chest with 4 new options

Some that claimed the packs initially noticed that what came out of the random chests was kind of a dud, with various items being less useful. With a big grant of these chests, it was intended to give some real boosts for those that opened them, so when many underdelivered, the community had some feedback on the matter.

Amazon has announced that there will be a make good grant “to ensure all players are fully geared up with Battle Items of all types, we will be distributing an additional 100 "4 Battle Item Chests". Players who have already claimed their gift will also keep the initial items”

The recently-released Lost Ark roadmap for the first half of 2023 revealed some new content on the way, including this month’s The Witcher collaboration, and quality of life updates. February will bring the beans new continent of Rowen, along with new item level requirements and challenges, including the ability to opt into open world PvP.

EA Sports FC 24 will represent a huge change in the annual release of football games, and with EA’s footballing behemoth set to continue, we put forward 5 things that need to change in the game’s Ultimate Team mode moving forward.

Whether it’s called FIFA or EA Sports FC, the fact is that EA will still be producing a football simulation game that is bound to find the top bins like it always does. The strike might not always be pure, but it’s enough to tempt millions of consumers into buying it each and every season.

EA Sports FC 24 will have a different name, but the core of FIFA is still expected to be retained, which means we’re likely to see a whole host of familiar game modes returning – including the money-making Ultimate Team.

With that being said, we’ve drawn up a list of areas we think EA needs to work on when it comes to Ultimate Team, to make it a more fulfilling and engaging game mode.

1. Less promos & SBCs

I’ll just go ahead and say it, the oversaturation of weekly promos and excessive SBCs killed off FIFA 23 long before Christmas.

‘Special’ cards no longer feel special when EA are releasing several new players with amazing stats that also make top-tier Rare Gold cards redundant. In addition, TOTW is a shadow of its former self.

The knock-on effect is a completely dead market in which FIFA 23 only has two Rare Gold Players who sell for over 100K heading into 2023.

It was a bore to see everyone have Haaland spearheading their team by the end of November with a litany of SBCs surrounding him. Endgame teams shouldn’t be a regular sight in December, and it kills all the fun by having every game be an absolute sweatfest.

2. Scrap meaningless consumables

Is there a human being alive who enjoys the concept of Contracts or Healing? Like Fitness cards, they were a tricky yet strategic element of Ultimate Team in years gone by, but the abundance of packs, free packs, and rewards means you’ll simply never run out of them now.

They’ve become a nuisance for the sake of being a nuisance and add nothing to the game. I get that they’re also there to fill up packs as rares, but in that case, find new ways of going about it – as they did with Position Modifier cards.

3. Bring back the Win/Loss system for Division Rivals

The checkpoint system was an attempt to reinvigorate FUT Rivals and give it a shake-up. The only problem was that the classic Promotion/Relegation system across a set number of games wasn’t broken – so they didn’t need to ‘fix’ it.

Now, you can be permanently stuck in limbo in a division that you’re not entirely comfortable with for a whole season. This makes the grind for Weekly Rewards harder (another mistake was changing the total needed to 8 for the Reward Upgrade) and your gameplay more frustrating.

Bring back the old system, please.

4. Increase the challenge of FUT Moments for more rewards

The big concern was that FUT Moments was going to become stale very quickly, and that turned out to be the case as EA didn’t make them worth completing as the Season 1 rewards were tragically woeful.

It’s a novel concept having bitesize segments of gameplay to grind towards rewards, but therein lies the second problem – the gameplay is tedious.

Playing against a team with a guaranteed minimum of 20 in-game minutes left to play and winning by 2 goals on Semi-Pro is not appealing to anyone, let alone challenges that dumb the difficulty down even more.

Give us interesting scenarios where we can choose multiple different difficulty levels, a la Squad Battles, and offer us fun, varied objectives to complete with decent rewards on the line. Otherwise, FUT Moments risks being a great concept that ends up dying – like FUT Draft.

5. Guaranteed rewards for FUT Champions

Unless you’re finishing extremely high up in FUT Champions, then it’s a serious case of Forest Gump syndrome with FUT Champions as you literally have no idea what you’re going to get.

Now, in fairness, big respect has to go to EA as they reduced the original 40 games down to 30 and now to 20, but for lots of people, 20 is still a hefty commitment. So, if you’re going to battle your heart and soul out to try and rack up as many wins as possible, then you want to be rewarded.

Worse still, players who are getting 12-16 wins, sometimes more, are getting amazing rewards on paper, but being shafted when it comes to their actual prizes. It would make sense to implement a system similar to Rivals in that players can pick from two or three rewards, with at least one option guaranteeing you an 86+ player for example.

These are just some of the ways in which we’d go about improving EA’s football game moving forward as we head into the new era of EA Sports FC.

The long-awaited Path Of Exile 2 will be fully unveiled next year, first at Exilecon 2023 before heading to Gamescom in August for European players to check out in the flesh, devs Grinding Gear Games have confirmed. Path Of Exile 2 had been penciled in for a 2022 release, but it's now looking like the sequel could arrive in time for the series' tenth anniversary. A beta is planned, too, and dates for that will be announced when the game is shown at Exilecon.

GGG's CEO Chris Wilson declined to go into detail about what we can expect to see from Path Of Exile 2 at Gamescom during a press preview of today's Forbidden Sanctum expansion stream, but he did say that development on the sequel is going well. time since we last heard much about the game. Path Of Exile 2 was first announced at Exilecon 2019, just a little more than three years ago. It's set to introduce a second, seven-act storyline that's playable alongside the original Path Of Exile camp .

We rated the OG Path Of Exile among the best RPGs to play on PC earlier this year, and plonked it on our list of the best free PC games too. Path Of Exile was released in 2013 but still gets a fresh expansion every three months. This time around GGG are taking the game roguelike with The Forbidden Sanctum, which pits your character against multiple floors of perilous dungeons and chucks all sorts of boons, afflictions and bosses at them.

Read More: Tips For Running Path Of Exile Sanctum League

Path Of Exile 2 doesn’t have a release date yet, as you’d expect. I’ll let you know when I hear more but. For now, Path Of Exile’s The Forbidden Sanctum expansion is in full swing.

While some may reel at the idea of Diablo 4 followers, like them or loathe them, the helpful companions have become a staple part of the action RPG game‘s combat. I asked Blizzard what its plans are for aides in Diablo 4, and while they didn’t say too much, it looks like followers may join the roster at some point.

Speaking to lead class designer Adam Z. Jackson in the wake of the Diablo 4 gameplay preview, I asked whether or not the follower system would be more akin to that of Diablo 2 or Diablo 3 – if there was one at all.

For those unaware, in Diablo 2 you would hire followers to descend on the gates of hell with you, but when they were killed you had to rehire them with cold hard cash. A new follower appeared in each zone, meaning some were absolutely better than others.

This evolved in Diablo 3, where instead of hiring mercenaries you acquired three different companions during the story campaign. You had the Scoundrel, Sorceress, and Templar, who represented ranged DPS, tank, and magic user respectively.

In my Diablo 4 adventure I only encountered helpful NPCs who stuck around for a dungeon or two then rode of into the sunset. When I asked Jackson how the game’s follower function will work, they stated “for the launch version of the game we do have some places in the story in particular where you will have certain named NPCs following you and helping you out as you figure out what Lilith is doing in the world.

“We don’t have anything to announce about the Diablo 2-type follower that you hire – we’re sticking it to the campaign for now.” Emphasis on the for now.

With a wry smile they continue “stay tuned, we may have something in the future to announce but no promises.” This immediately prompted a response from dungeon producer Ash Sweetring, who channelled her inner Mr. Burns with an ‘interesting’ hand motion in the background. Now that’s what I call sus.

If any iteration of the follower system makes it into Diablo 4, I would rather it was the Diablo 2-style hired gun instead of omnipresent companions. I liked the vast array of different abilities followers brought to the table in Diablo 2 and would love to see this innovated upon. It opens up yet more space for different builds, as well as awesome demon-slaying ability chains.

For now, though, you may want to read up on the Diablo 4 classes, as it’s them we’ll be playing as primarily. In a separate interview with game director Joe Shely, however, it was implied that this roster may expand – after all, nothing is eternal in Sanctuary.

Torchlight: Infinite has a brand new trailer for its next season, coming in January, that gives a peek at the Blacksail update and the start of a new adventure for the ARPG. From new skill options, new features, to endgame content, January looks packed.

If you've been playing Torchlight: Infinite for a while and you're hungry for some new content, there's more on the way. Expect the new Blacksail story content, where Aemberons eat each other in the Sea of Void, leading to wandering souls trying to rejoin the living. Blacksail gets pulled by these efforts to try to take over even more worlds under the Lord of Void Sea.

In season 2, there will be new skills introduced, as well as something called Hero Relics, that will let you progress and develop your builds with additional loot and loadout slots for additional variety. There's also something called Hero Memories. Every character can equip one Hero Relic, which will give you three slots to fill with Hero Memories. What these memories do is provide affixes related to your specialization. You get to pick which ones are the most helpful for you, and there will be five new main skills when the new season starts. XTD is also adding some new gear.

When it comes to the endgame content, you'll be able to earn loot drops with special affixes, Void Sea Night Flame when you kill monsters in the Netherrealm map. Collect those until you can eventually break some seals to take on the endgame challenges, including the final boss, the Lord of Void Sea himself.

The new update will feature some tech updates and quality of life changes, including the ability to play with controller on PC. Other improvements include better robot optimization, an updated info panel, and even a customizable minimap that you can display as semi-transparent.