Sons of Trigon picks up where the DCUO’s original story left off. In that story, the villainous Trigon tries to use Raven, his daughter, as a means to enter our world. Trigon’s efforts ultimately failed, and he found himself stuck in a nightmarish version of Gotham City, which is where our tour began.
We were told that said new zone, Gotham Wastelands, is much larger than the Central City zone the team introduced to the game with the previously released DLC, Lightning Strikes. Visually, Wastelands is what you’d imagine a melding of a demonic realm and Gotham City to look like. The city looks almost completely devastated and there are even sections of the city built upon floating islands away from the main land itself. Up above, a colorful constellation can be seen, with each of its stars representing the children of Trigon.
As a villain, you’ll undertake missions from Cheetah, Brother Blood, Giganta, Gentleman Ghost, and of course, Circe. Jens took one of the DLC’s new bounty missions from Cheetah. The bounty tasks us (as villains) to take on the good version of Raven’s soul-self. The mission is set up for four players, though we ran into a hero who learned that the hard way when fighting the heroic version of Raven. The other characters we mentioned will offer solo (12 total, four per area) missions for players to undertake in three areas of the Wastelands, each themed after Trigon’s sons: Jared (Wrath), Jesse (Envy), and Jacob (Lust).
The Raven fight was where we got our first taste of the DLC’s included Celestial power set. Jesse Scott took over healing duty for the fight using the new Celestial powerset. And it looks like the healing was definitely needed! Not long into the fight, the Titans showed up to defend Raven, including: Beast Boy, Wonder Girl, Starfire, etc.
The Celestial set features both Blessed and Cursed trees, focusing on a theme of light and dark. Systems designer Jesse Scott noted that the powers feature a sort of interplay between each other, for example Blessed powers can be combo’d into cleansed versions of the Cursed powers, allowing for additional healing or damage free of cost. In general, the Blessed tree focuses more on burst healing, while the Cursed tree is designed as a lifedrain healing tree using HoTs.
Our next stop was the Ruined Cathedral Duo on the Wrath peninsula. The Cathedral will pit players against the aforementioned Jared, leader of the Cult of Wrath. The duo employs DCUO’s improved matinee system, which better involves players into the game’s various matinees. The Cathedral’s environment features improved visuals, as well. As we moved through the duo, we were able to see more of the Celestial power set in action. One of the more interesting powers on display was Divine Light. Divine Light spawns a number of glowing light glyphs on the ground which have different effects depending on who passes through them. Ally players who pass through these glyphs will be healed, while enemies who pass through will then end up partially healing targets as they damage them.
Before you can fight Jared himself, you’ll have to tackle random boss encounter (we ran into the Titans’ Beast Boy in our demo). With Beast Boy taken out, Jens proceeded to take on some Wrath cultists in order to acquire Vessels of Wrath that are needed to take out the barriers blocking entrance to the rest of the area. Deeper into the Cathedral, Jens showed off a couple of fire traps that can be used against the cultists (if you can survive the heat) in order to kill them off in short order.
Eventually we arrived at the entrance to the Cathedral’s west tower, where players will be able to choose one of three high-ranking Wrath cultists to fight along their route to unlocking the eastern gate. Each cultist has a different shtick and our duo decided to go with the middle option, which pits them against the Smoldering Wrath. This massive demon creature spawns a number of fire fields and teleports around the room, but otherwise seemed to be a straightforward tank-and-spank.
With the Smoldering Wrath out of the way, our brave duo finally made their way to Jared. The Jared fight features four sconces in each corner of the room. Each sconce erupts into a variety of game effects over the course of the fight. We saw flame-spitting demons, ice fields that will snare you, and other environmental hazards. You can also fight the other sons of Trigon as a bonus boss fight in each duo if you complete certain missions outside of the duo. The boss fight is soloable, which should be helpful if your duo partner decides to bail out early.
In addition to the Wrath Duo we saw, there are two other Duos and an Alert featured in Sons of Trigon. The Alert will pit players against Wonder Woman or Circe depending on whether they are heroes or villains and Trigon will make an appearance, smashing the battlefield and tossing out abilities. The goal is to keep him contained (as a villain) in order to sap his energy or simply to ensure he isn’t released (as a hero).
Finally, we were shown Donna Troy and Cheetah, two new Legends PvP characters included with the DLC. Legends PvP allows players to play as iconic DC Comics characters in a variety of forms of PvP.
Cheetah is a feral cat-like character, as her name would imply, and she features martial arts combos, magic-based attacks, and is also the first super-speedster available as a Legends character. One of the moves we were shown was Rake, a slashing attack that adds a poisonous DoT. The other, is Blood Sacrifice, which can be used to execute enemies below 35% health using the magical dagger that cursed her. Cheetah will also go berserk when low on health, increasing her damage.
Donna Troy uses magical artifacts bestowed upon her by the Greek gods. She has a mantle and belt that grant her magical shields, a lariat power, and more.
DLC 8: Sons of Trigon arrives September 3rd on the PC and PlayStation 3. Legendary members will receive early access to the DLC beginning next week.
Michael Bitton / Michael began his career at the WarCry Network in 2005 as the site manager for several different WarCry fansite portals. In 2008, Michael worked for the startup magazine Massive Gamer as a columnist and online news editor. In June of 2009, Michael joined MMORPG.com as the site's Community Manager. Follow him on Twitter @eMikeB
