Touring DCUO's War of Light Part II before next week's release
The DC universe is a big one, and DC Universe Online has multiple storylines involving various heroes and villains playing out through its DLC trilogies. So far, however, only the first part of each trilogy has been available to play. But that's all about to change! Starting next week, players finally get to sink their teeth into the continuation of one when the second part of War of Light, which premiered earlier this year, finally releases. Members will be granted early access to War of Light Part II on November 11th while everyone else gets the DLC on the 18th (with the exception of European players who will get it on the 19th). But thanks to a tour with Creative Director Jens Andersen and Assistant Creative Director SJ Mueller, we didn't have to wait until next week to see what's in store.
The story
War of Light Part II is, as Andersen put it, "Really where we start getting into the meat of the story. In part II, we finally reveal what the heck is going on." The plot actually ties all the way back to the launch stories for Green Lantern as well as the first DLC, Fight for the Light, where Brainiac tried to assimilate the entities with the goal of turning emotion into logic. It turns out Brainiac basically atomized the entities! Now the Lantern Corps have figured out that these colored mists scattered across Metropolis are the incorporeal entities themselves. Can the leaders of the various corps reconstitute the entities and reignite the central power batteries before the power of the light is lost forever, or will old rivalries and sabotage attempts keep them from succeeding?
The adventures
We've heard many of the details of the upcoming adventures before. We know that this second step in the war brings new content for solo players and groups alike. We also know that not only are there new missions, alerts, and operations, but there are new planets as well; players will get to travel to Qward and Zamaron on their adventures. What we want to know is how the new adventures actually play. Are they fun? After watching the devs play through the alert Avarice Impurity, I'd say yes.
Three things stood out for me during the play-through that upped the fun factor. The first was facing the mist-infused Penguin; not only was it amusing to see him, but he had little orange penguin constructs (that happen to shoot lasers out of their eyes) join in the battle. How can that not be fun? The second was the traps! Let me just warn you to be on your toes during the alert: Those traps set by the orange constructs are visible only when you are really close, and you have mere moments to escape before they blast you! Andersen kindly demonstrated what happened when you are too slow on a few occasions. The third one was getting a peek at the Lex Luthor boss encased in his orange battle armor. Andersen pointed out that Luther's costume is directly from the comics, although the storyline is different.
Those aren't the only highlights to this next DLC. Though we didn't get to see her, Mueller noted that heroes will get to fight Wonder Woman for the first time as a mist-infused enemy. Harley Quinn also makes an appearance (take a wild guess which emotion she's infused with!). And I'd encourage everyone to take the time to look out the windows and just take in the environments; plenty of detail went into the surroundings.
When readers want the scoop on a launch or a patch (or even a brewing fiasco), Massively goes right to the source to interview the developers themselves. Be they John Smedley or Chris Roberts or anyone in between, we ask the devs the hard questions. Of course, whether they tell us the truth or not is up to them!
