Diablo III’s new expansion, Reaper of Souls, has sold over 2.7 million copies since it’s release just last week, Blizzard announced yesterday. The expansion, released for Windows PC and Mac on March 25, tacks on a fifth act to the storyline, introduces a new class, the Crusader, adds new spells and abilities to the five already-existing hero classes and raises the level cap to 70, up from 60 in the original.
That 2.7 million includes physical and digital copies of the $40 game sold online and at retailers. The announcement also notes that Twitch views of Diablo III exceeded 2.4 million on launch day alone and that the new final boss – the Angel of Death, Malthael – has already been defeated 1.5 million times. Diablo III, at its initial release in 2012, sold 3.5 million copies in just 24 hours.
The expansion also introduces a new game type called Adventure Mode that allows players to free-roam the territory of Sanctuary. Brave Nephalem are also now offered bounties, which are “randomized objectives that award gold and experience.” Players will also note the introduction of “Nephalem Rifts” which add new randomized dungeons offering “endless replayablity and heaps of loot.” And finally, the list of artisans grows by one with the Mystic, who can provide gear customization options.
“With Reaper of Souls, we wanted to emphasize all the things that Diablo gamers have always loved about the series, from the dark gothic setting to the piles and piles of epic loot,” Blizzard CEO and cofounder Mike Morhaime said in a press statement. “We’re excited to see that players are enjoying the changes we’ve made to the game, and we look forward to achieving our Paragon levels alongside everyone else in the weeks and months ahead.”
Diablo III, for those who don’t know, is an action RPG dungeon crawler developed by Blizzard (of Starcraft and World of Warcraft fame) and published by Activision. Gamers select a character from one of now six classes in their quest to take down the Lord of Terror, Diablo himself. Players can team up with friends or random strangers into groups of at most four as they slay their way through dungeons, caves and barren wastelands against hordes of monsters and demons. As you fight your way through, you gain experience to level up your character and unlock powerful spells and abilities as well as find heaps of loot including weapons, armor and gold.
The title was released for PC and Mac in May of 2012 and has since made its way to Xbox 360 and PS3. Diablo III: Ultimiate Evil Edition, currently in production for the PS4, will include the recently released Reaper of Souls and drop sometime in 2014. Plans are in the work for a similar release on Xbox One, but no schedule has been announced.