The team at Carbine is hard at work bringing some new content to WildStar. We got a sneak peak at some of the projects there and what fans can expect to see in the upcoming releases. With the lore of Nexus finally coming out from behind the curtain, Carbine has some plans for solo content as well as a new high level zone which players can check out. Stephan Frost, who gave us the demo, stressed the boost in solo content which looked and played almost like an RPG.
The Mystery of Genesis Prime is the new area players can explore on the surface. The zone hosts path missions as players fight back against the Strain. The area is corrupted by weird beasts and plant life. The artwork is really different even in the Wildstar fashion. Players can tackle areas in groups as small teams are encouraged to work together. You can also progress through this area solo, but you will see friends along the way doing their own quest series. Fighting the spiders which were spreading the strain was fun to watch and being able to take down their queen looked like an epic battle, even if it was for a solo player.
The area hosts a lot of puzzles as well. Players will find challenges of all types. The new content also focuses a lot on working with some of the major faction NPCs you have met in the game before. We watched a five man battle which fought against a huge boss on top of the tiered platform. Battling Koral the Defiler will give players a run for their money, but some of the rewards looked well worth it.
The real boost to solo content was shown to us in the Omnicore 1 preview that we got to see. Omnicore 1 is a super computer on the planet Nexus that players break into. The computer has been corrupted by a fast talking ghost like AI which battles you through a series of missions. As Omnicore tries to help you along the way, the area hosts a huge solo adventure. You do get some help from faction NPCs and also some help from the computer itself. The biggest thing about Omnicore is that the team have finally agreed to release a lot of lore about the planet Nexus and why it is so valuable.
The content plays like a dungeon raid for a single player followed up with a major hack into the matrix. It is all delivered as only Wildstar could with flashy graphics and a sense of humor. While you are traveling around the massive complex, you will hear about a raid that is going on in the dungeon as well. There are puzzles (one similar to Frogger comes to mind), plenty of data cubes, and rewards to be found. Omnicore is also the first fully voiced section of Wildstar to be released.
Stephan Frost explained that Omnicore is a very balanced experience. They wanted to mitigate the combat, puzzle, and lore in the area so players did not rush through it. It really worked and the demo captured that single player RPG style. The boss battle we saw from Omnicore was once again played out on an epic scale, even though it was only single player content.
We asked when all of this great material would be coming out for players. It will come out when it is ready was the answer. Stephan explained that the team really wants to bring a lot of quality to the live game. Wildstar players will have a ton to look forward to coming up over the next few months. Now using the mega-servers and bringing players closer together there will be lots of new content to explore... just hopefully we don't have to wait too long to give it a try.
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