After Thursday night's opening address at this year's SOE Fan Faire, it was pretty evident that the teams behind some of these games weren't even close to done. The DC Universe Online team was no exception. There's a new piece of content coming for the game, and while it's going to be taking a little bit of money out of your pocket to get it, it's going to give you a lot of stuff.
DC Universe Online: Fight for the Light is going to be adding Green Lantern content to the game, including the Light powerset. That's right, the paid update will be adding in a seventh powerset. As a villain, fight with Fear as a Yellow Lantern, or, as a good guy, fight with your Will as a Green Lantern. The download pack will bring in 24 new abilities for the power set, each side (yellow and green) having unique animations for them.
The power set, which will fall under Controller, will have some interesting new features to it. For example, while 12 of the 24 new abilities will be regular powers, the other 12 will be new weapon types. At character creation, you select the Light power set with the Staff combat style. These “weapon type” abilities would allow you to, by selecting the power from your hotbar to load up, say, a light chainsaw and instead of just doing a single attack and then going away, the chainsaw actually becomes like a weapon for several seconds with its own unlockable combos for maximum damage. Additionally, if you've unlocked several of these weapon type abilities, you can string combos together, making for one of most complex fighting styles seen in the game thus far.
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The download pack will also be bringing in three new Alerts and a brand new Duo to the game as well, all Green Lantern themed. The first of the Alerts will tie into the previous Green Lantern content wherein the rings for both fear and will are being weakened (which was content for characters in the high 20s within the regular game). Enter into STAR Labs with Sinestro and Hal Jordan to take down these “Emotion Batteries” that Brainiac has set up to siphon out the powers behind the powerful weapons, helping to bring the power structure of the two Corps back into harmony, and back into regulation by defeating Brainiac's scheme. The second brings Hal Jordan's home city, Coast City, into the mix, as you enter Ferris Aircraft in order to defeat the Red Lantern Corps (Rage Lanterns), a group of angry, violent lanterns. The alert will culminate in taking down Atrocitus, leader of the Red Lantern Corps. The third and final of these Alerts will take the player to the Green Lantern Corps' home base, Oa. As galactic police, The Green Lantern Corps use “The Science Cells” on Oa as a green hard light prison to house all of the inter-galactic criminals whom they cross. The Alert will see players attempting to prevent a prison break from The Science Cells wherein they'll encounter iconic villains from throughout the Green Lantern mythos. The Duo will be a revisit of the Coast City Alert, where you and a buddy will team up to take down Atrocitus.
A new fiction had to be created in order for the download pack to make sense, since both the Green Lantern Corps and the Sinestro Corps are both factions that, through the lore of the comic books, would only have a limited amount of number of members. Because of the previous Green Lantern content available in the game, with the power of the green and yellow rings losing their power, the Green Lantern Corps and the Sinestro Corps have both sought out “reservist members” in order to bolster their ranks in a bid to overcome this challenge, explaining how there could be so many superheroes or villains running around with power rings on. In addition, more items will be coming to the game as well, including a Green Lantern Corps suit and a Sinestro Corps suit and new iconic armor set as well.
The download pack will also add more iconic characters from the Green Lantern universe to the game. Notables include: (a personal highlight) Guy Gardiner, Kyle Rayner; son of Abin Sur and member of the Sinestro Corps, Amon Sur, Red Lantern’s Atrocitus and Vice, and even more.
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The download pack does not replace the content update. Jens Anderson, who made this announcement to us, advised that the free content updates will continue to be available to the players and covered within the subscription fee. The download pack, on the other hand, will be looking to add more substantial content (such as a new power set) and will be available at additional cost to the subscription. Both the updates and the download packs will continue to be developed and released moving forward, though no timeline was divulged.
You can expect to have access to Fight for the Light available to you by late Summer 2011 for the tidy little cost of $9.99, at which time you'll be able to either start an alt and level up an all new Light Powered character, or respec an existing character to hold the ring of will, or fear.
