Players explore the vast city of Neverwinter and its surrounding countryside, learning the vivid history of the iconic city and battling its many enemies. In Neverwinter, players can create their own quests and campaigns with the Foundry, a powerful content creation tool that allows players to seamlessly integrate their adventures in to the live game world.

They might not be the most pleasant-looking creatures, but they are definitely a fierce bunch of savage and bloodthirsty warriors. By plaguing the civilized races, Orcs have always been a major threat to humans, elves and dwarfs. Laying claim to the area in the northern half of the old Tower District, Orcs have made the Cloak Tower in Neverwinter their home. Even the most courageous heroes will have to fight their way through the ruins of this district to put an end to the Orc domination and help restore Neverwinter to her former glory.

In this upcoming expansion Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic Studios are introducing new replayable content, the ability to visually preview gear, a new campaign, the markets of Mantol-Derith, a new Stronghold plot location, a new Stronghold PvP tower, a massive rework of the Tarmalune Tradebar Store, a large-scale battle against the demon prince Demogorgon, and quests written by R.A. Salvatore!

In Neverwinter: Underdark players will dare to descend into the Rage of Demons storyline from Wizards of the Coast, adding even more content for players to explore throughout the Forgotten Realms. The update for the free-to-play MMORPG will see players battle against the two-headed Demogorgon, Demon Lord, alongside classic Dungeons & Dragons characters including Drizzt Do’Urden, Regis and Bruenor Battlehammer. Prior to tackling the new 10-player battle, Neverwinter players will take part in a special quest line written by New York Times Best-Selling Author, R.A. Salvatore, whose recently released novel Archmage kicks off the Rage of Demons story.

Two of the major themes being built into all of the content forthis expansion are replayable vs. repeatable, and variable rewards based on quality of play.

Replayable vs. Repeatable

In any piece of content that you play more than once, there’s a danger that after you basically understand what’s going on, you don’t need to really pay attention anymore. Eventually, the content can be played by muscle memory; it becomes repeatable. Once this happens, you stop really engaging. When you’re no longer engaged, everything feels like a chore.

To combat this, variability is being introduced in this expansion’s content. When you’re playing through a given battle, you need to identify key things that are different for that fight, and then make a decision on how to deal with it. When you can no longer play content with your eyes closed, it becomes replayable.

Variable Rewards

It always feels good to make obvious progress as you increase in skill and tactics. As you learn and play the content this expansion, you’ll find yourself getting better, and earning higher rewards. Each of the replayable pieces of content will reward based on varying success levels. With everyone working together, the best rewards will be possible!

Neverwinter: Underdark is coming to PC in Fall 2015 and to the Xbox One following the PC launch.