Diablo 3 to retain bonus buff beyond second anniversary celebrations

Blizzard will retain the increased Legendary drop rate once the Diablo 3 Anniversary celebration ends, game designer Travis Day announced on the Battle.net forums.

"Once the buff is disabled tomorrow morning, you will find that the new base line drop rates for Legendary items will be the same as those you have all enjoyed for the last week," Day wrote.

Blizzard introduced the "bonus birthday buff" from May 15-22 to celebrate Diablo 3's two-year anniversary. The buff awards players with double Rift Fragments and a 100 percent boost for their chances to find Legendary items. The buff applies to "all characters and stack with similar bonuses" but was only made available to Windows PC and Mac editions of the game.

Launching in 2012, Diablo 3 received expansion Reaper of Souls in March. A console-exclusive package, which includes the game and its latest expansion, is slated to launch Aug. 19 on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One as the Ultimate Evil Edition.