Rise of the Godslayer is the first expansion for Funcom's Age of Conan, and we've got an exclusive dev diary video on the expansion to bring you up to speed.

The video opens up with Funcom Director of Communications Erling Ellingsen explaining why Funcom chose GamesCom to reveal the expansion to the world.  Ellingsen says that the fact the expansion was playable to gamers at GamesCom proved very valuable to Funcom as they were able to receive direct feedback from players.

Lead Expansion Designer Joel Bylos explains the reason Funcom decided to explore the oriental-themed Khitai with their first expansion, "It's about involving players in a completely new story, far away from the place where they began their journey."

Craig Morrison adds that Khitai was always "high on the list" when the company was looking for a new region to explore with their first expansion, but he explains that Howard only mentioned Khitai very briefly in his writings, so they relied on the story of the "Tower of the Elephant" which ties in heavily to Khitai.

Rise of the Godslayer will also make use of "visual storytelling", instead of simply relying on voice acting, quest text, etc. Some examples include a burning effigy of Conan, meteorites containing demons falling out of the sky, guards changing at the wall.

On the visuals of the Rise of Godslayer, Craig Morrison explains that Funcom wanted to look to ancient China and Korea as inspiration for the look of the expansion, while explicitly avoiding Japanese influences due to the fact they felt that it had been overused in recent games. Funcom even went so far as to send some of their team to some of the ancient sites in Korea and China in order to provide players with an authentic experience.

The expansion will contain five massive new regions, populated hundreds of hours of new quests, new dungeons, new endgame raid content, new exploration mechanics such as buried treasures to find and shrines to pray at, new enemy types, and new mounts.

Also coming to Age of Conan with Rise of the Godslayer are additions to combat with the introduction of the alternate advancement system, and new NPC abilities that will enhance enemy AI and make combat more challenging for players.

Watch the full dev diary here.

For more information on Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer, visit the expansion's official website!