Genre: MMORPG
Publisher: Mythic Entertainment
Developer: Mythic Entertainment
Release Date: Q4 2005

The expansion is geared towards high level characters — you will need to be at least level 50 to start the new Champion quests. These quests will give you a new epic weapon (one per class) and allow you to choose some sub specialties from other classes. While these are not expected to be massively game changing — "Your warrior will not become a battle healer," says Sanya Weathers, Mythic's Internet Relations Manager, "We have a class that does that already called a cleric." — Mythic does acknowledge the changes will affect RvR, since classes will now have different, and potentially unpredictable, abilities.

Darkness Rising also finally adds player-controlled horses to DAoC — a feature that's been promised for quite some time. You don't need to worry that you'll need to pay to get the horse. All players will get a quested horse at level 35, and if you buy the expansion you'll get a more advanced, customizable horse that will let you fly the guild flags on, add saddlebags to, etc. The actual speed of the horse isn't fully nailed down, but is expected to be slightly slower than the fastest bard speed, so those classes won't have key features made obsolete by the horse.

Each expansion Mythic upgrades a visual component of the game that's starting to show its age, and this year the RvR dungeon Darkness Falls gets an upgrade. The existing geometry won't change; just the graphics, so if you don't buy the expansion you'll still be able to play in the zone.

Mythic was sketchy on how many new zones they are adding. "We're building zones as we need them, " says Walter Yarborough, Mythic's Content Producer. Mythic expects to ship during the holiday season for '05.