Black Desert - Eternal Winter Preview

I was recently invited to check out the upcoming expansion to Black Desert (formerly known as Black Desert Online), which brings along a new region as well as a new class. Titled Eternal Winter, the expansion takes you to the titular Mountain of Eternal Winter as either a continuation of your current family of characters, or as a brand new character in a starting area south of Drieghan.

I was shown around a bit by CM Endlaive, Community Manager for Pearl Abyss, and got to check out the early parts of the main quest. I’ll admit that I didn’t really understand everything that I was told because I haven’t played the game in a while, and I couldn’t spell the place names that were mentioned if you asked me. Basically, the main quest line for Eternal Winter involves besting the trials of the witches and obtaining the flames of Ynix to defeat evil.

As is the case with Black Desert, when you start Eternal Winter at level one you’ve lost your memories. Luckily for you, everyone else remembers your great deeds and are happy for you to get on with things, though you’re free to wander off and complete other quests if you like. Speaking of “everyone else”, all of the NPCs are voiced, including Lando who is my favourite person ever, and all of the cutscenes are fully rendered. Pearl Abyss has said that it intends on going back through the game to make all of the quests fully voiced with cutscenes and all the improvements that Eternal Winter has.

Lando is an anthropomorphic snow fox who is trying to climb the Mountain of Eternal Winter, which means they want you to do all of the scary stuff like fighting the new yeti-like Okjinsini. Lando is here to introduce you to the region and get you out of the starting area and into the mountain proper.

The new class is called Drakania, and is being touted as the opposite of the Guardian class, quite literally as they have an ancient rivalry tied to their patron dragons of old. For example, one of the Guardian’s abilities will add a slow debuff, whereas Drakania removes them. She (each class in Black Desert has a set gender) wields a greatsword and a lot of electrical damage, with some really quick movement attacks.

While en-route to show off some of the Drakania’s fighting moves, CM Endlaive also told me about the Progression Pass which was added late last year. It’s a bunch of tasks that you either will or should do, and when you do you’ll get items or in-game currency. Perfect for people starting anew with Eternal Winter, as well as for returning players.

Rather than the normal open-world monster zones where people tend to grind for items to enhance their gear, Eternal Winter is introducing instanced dungeons. In said zones you usually have to fight any other player before you can grind the monsters, but not so in the new dungeons, as once you’re in a zone it’s yours until you leave. Each has six rooms, allowing six players per server to grind, with a tougher boss monster appearing at random and accessible via a portal, which all six players can fight as a group.

CM Endlaive finished up the hands-off portion by explaining the new "escape room dungeons". I think there’s only one in this expansion, but Pearl Abyss has said that there are plans to expand and change them as things progress. Basically, it’s a dungeon that gives you various tasks to advance — defeat monsters in certain ways, solve puzzles, that sort of thing. The catch is that you need to obtain keys to access it, and those keys are rare drops. While ideally you’ll get different tasks each time you go inside, there’s a chance that some will repeat if you manage to get enough keys to do it repeatedly.

If you prefer to not fight, the region has a new life skill to add onto the others already available in the form of ice fishing. The other new thing that I was told about is the new fairy companion which is available through the quest line. Among its abilities as it levels up is automatically using potions you attach when you reach a set amount of health or mana.

When I was finished with CM Endlaive I managed to get some time with the expansion myself with a high-level character. It looks fantastic, as you might expect from Pearl Abyss, with great NPC and enemy designs. However, the new Drakania class takes quite a bit of getting used to, as the first group of mobs I fought took me ages to kill.

I was honestly very impressed with what I saw of Eternal Winter. New enemies, food, equipment, and activities added for free, and a new level one starting area — what more could you ask for? While I didn’t manage to sink many hours into the expansion due to embargoes, it certainly looks like there is going to be a lot to do, and it’s definitely a great jumping in point for newcomers.

Black Desert’s Eternal Winter expansion will be free for all players when it launches on PC on 6th of April.