Darkfall gets a massive makeover

By Robert Purchese Published 7 October, 2010

Hellfreeze expansion released.

Aventurine has unleashed a massive new expansion for MMO Darkfall that will graphically overhaul the entire world of Agon.

It's called Hellfreeze. Cringe. It's 6GB big.

Aventurine has spent a year implementing a "fresh new look, feel and atmosphere" and, in some cases, an "extreme makeover" for monsters.

Dungeons - 17 of them - have been "re-themed" and "re-designed", many to include vendors with items and quests. In addition, "entirely new dungeons" have been added to each capital city next to the bank for beginners to explore.

Hellfreeze itself follows the arrival of two great new evils (read: bosses) to the world. One is known simply as The Demon, the other, The Ice Dragon. With them are the Gorra Dar and Gorra Slave, Gray Ork Executioner, Shadow Spirit, Svartdvergir Doombringer, Beastman Devastator and Deathless Servant.

Aventurine has "shifted and redistributed" monster spawns, and dungeons have had a "notable boom" in angry occupants. And intriguingly, "many" of the monsters you face will now level up when they kill players.

Hellfreeze also brings Funflags that can be placed anywhere on the map and serve as start and finish posts for races on Funhulks. Capture the flag-style Player Flags have been added, too, as have treasure map drops from monsters.

There are two new mounts - a speedy Blue-Tailed Runner and fearsome Tribeland Bear - and two new ships: a small, versatile Launch and bigger but sleep Junk.

Those are the headline additions, but there's plenty more besides. Spells have been reworked, AI has been upgraded, areas remodelled, animation tweaked, social bits and bobs improved and large scale battles optimised.

Hellfreeze will be Darkfall's third free major expansion to date.

Darkfall launched last February after years of development and scored first 2/10 on Eurogamer and then 4/10 - there was a storm of controversy surrounding the whole process.

Perhaps these significant changes merit a re-re-review. Or perhaps I'm playing devil's advocate.

Details on how to download the update and exactly what's in it are on the game's forum.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Number1Laing #1 2 years ago

    I'll get it when Hellfreezes over.
    Edited by Number1Laing at 07/10/10 @ 12:15

  • lucifonz #2 2 years ago

    Darkfall has actually come a long long way. If your into open world PvP sandbox style games then it's certainly worth checking out. Hats off to Aventurine for really turning the game around

  • neilka #3 2 years ago

    Post-patch fire kicks baby!

  • Clive_Dunn #4 2 years ago

    You bunch of carebear Euro loserfags.

  • ChthonicEcho #5 2 years ago

    I vote for a re-re-review.

  • Benno #6 2 years ago

    lol

  • Kami #7 2 years ago

    It may be that I'm a pessimist... but I sense this comments section isn't likely to go very well.

    Would be interesting to see a re-re-rereview based on this patch though.

  • ZuluHero #8 2 years ago

    @ChthonicEcho

    Yeah, A "massive" re-re-review! :D

  • InfiniteFury #9 2 years ago

    I will never subscribe to your magazine.

  • darkmorgado #10 2 years ago

    Perhaps these significant changes merit a re-re-review. Or perhaps I'm simply playing devil's advocate.

    God no. I still have nightmares about the comments thread on the original review. Jesus, that was a car crash. Not to mention all the Youtube videos that appeared, threatening Eurogamer and threatening to kill Ed Zitron.

    Do you REALLY want to go through that process again?

  • geeza2020 #11 2 years ago

    Please do, it was fucking hilarious for anyone with a sense of humour!

  • rotmm #12 2 years ago

    @darkmorgado, "Do you REALLY want to go through that process again?"

    Ummmm..... yes?

  • levitate #13 2 years ago

    The game hasn't even been out 12 months and they're already doing a makeover? Some games don't age very well.

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #14 2 years ago

    Re-re-review. And the crowd say bo. Selecta.

  • ChthonicEcho #15 2 years ago

    @darkmorgado

    Yeah, this is such a serious threat to Ed's life. Surely, he was intimidated and was forced to live like a hermit in uncharted wastelands for the rest of his life, fearful for his own safety.
    Edited by ChthonicEcho at 07/10/10 @ 12:36

  • TriggerHippie #16 2 years ago

    That vid still makes me laugh. Timeless.

  • TriggerHippie #17 2 years ago

    Launch the roflcopter!

  • Shakey_Jake33 #18 2 years ago

    @ChthonicEcho - That video is the first time I've heard 'lamer', 'f00' and 'kthanksbye' used in speech without a hint of jest present.

  • Trikk #19 2 years ago

    The game hasn't even been out 12 months and they're already doing a makeover?

    The game has been out 18+ months, but since they started development in 2001 (as Razorwax in Norway, now Aventurine SA in Greece) a lot of the art is very dated. It's still got DX9 effects but the actual art and geometry is sometimes very rough. There's no MMORPG out there at the moment that offers seamless naval warfare to castle siege to dungeon bash. It definitely deserves a fair review rather than the awkward freelance piece and defensive re-review that it had here.

    It offers a challenge to review though, because as one of the more "hardcore" MMORPGs it requires quite a time commitment and cannot be experienced completely on your own (unless you are ridiculously skilled). It is by design not a "pick up and play" casual game that anyone will have fun with no matter how little or much time they invest. Is it even worth reviewing MMORPGs fairly though?

    Running the risk of contradicting myself though, I managed to claim a boat with a week-old character (real time not play time):
    Darkfall Boat Event part 1
    Darkfall Boat Event part 2

  • Shikasama #20 2 years ago

    The extra little sarcastic comments were a little inappropriate. You didnt give the same sardonic and snide comments in the articles about Cataclysm and they are essentially both trying to achieve the same goal and is just as cringeworthy and cliche. Poor form there Rob, seemed like you were picking on an easy target a bit.

  • ChthonicEcho #21 2 years ago

    @Shikasama

    There is 'bad', and then there is 'hilariously bad'. Not to mention there was no controversy surrounding WoW's review; the conflict related to Darkfall was absolutely absurd, which warrants piss-taking.

  • Shikasama #22 2 years ago

    Chthonic - Yeah the Darkfall thing was before my time, but surely thats even more reason to be a little careful how you present it in the future.

    I'm not that bothered about it, it just struck me as bad taste to make fun of the things that were being made fun of when a very similar expansion is coming out for another game but has escaped similar treatment.

  • Kami #23 2 years ago

    @Trikk; "It offers a challenge to review though, because as one of the more "hardcore" MMORPGs it requires quite a time commitment and cannot be experienced completely on your own (unless you are ridiculously skilled). It is by design not a "pick up and play" casual game that anyone will have fun with no matter how little or much time they invest. Is it even worth reviewing MMORPGs fairly though?"

    What it is Trikk is a very niche game in a very niche market. Games today are generally speaking not as "niche" as they used to be, and a game like Darkfall lives and dies by the moniker it has for itself. "Extremely hardcore" is not a flattering title, even if it is intended as such.

    Also, the vitriolic reaction from the Darkfall community was enough to put any sane, reasonable person off forever and a day. EG may have provided some bait in the review (and there are ways of disagreeing without childish tantrums and death threats, I mean SERIOUSLY?! THAT'S the community you defend?) but you guys more than took it and the side you earned, the image you guys got here on EG was not a pleasant one.

    It deserves one last go - maybe third time lucky and we can all then draw a line under the chaos this game has caused, but perhaps the Darkfall community may have to realise that the audience for a title that is aimed at such a small, tight-knit niche of games players isn't expansive at all, and most "reviewers" won't get it. They won't have the time, or the community will shun them, or the game simply isn't intuitive enough. If you enjoy it and nothing else will do, enjoy it. But don't demand everyone enjoy it, because such a game isn't going to appeal to more than a handful of paletes - and it may still get panned, for multiple reasons, but those may be the very reasons you really enjoy it...

    Such is the nature of the beast.

  • Trikk #24 2 years ago

    @Kami

    I would say that games today are more niche than they have ever been, simply due to the size of the market. You can make a badass monkey breeding game with a $500 budget and get thousands of players. Or you can make Minecraft and become a millionaire in less than a year. The problem with reviewing it isn't that it's niche, the problem is that it demands a certain level of engagement from the player that I'm not sure will pay off in the end. They can only afford to spend so much time with a game considering it has to generate enough traffic to pay for itself via ad revenue. That's why games like Darkfall and Mount&Blade, which both have large followings, get 2-3 hours of playtime and a rushed review with unmotivated scores.

    The specific problem with the Darkfall review was that the freelancer (emphasis here because it was far below EG's usually high standards) who wrote it had absolutely no clue what he was writing about. Most of the review is paraphrased from posts on the Darkfall beta leak blog, which is why it was so factually wrong. The blog was sensationalist and covered many issues which were fixed during beta. The review was plainly full of lies and that pissed off the fans, just as a review of a Star Trek movie that was full of lies about Star Trek would piss off fat people.

    It's not like it's hard to find issues with Darkfall, just read their own forums and you'll see a billion threads with harsh criticism since forever, so at least spend an hour or two actually playing it so you can say what's bad and what's not so bad about it. That, or just don't review it at all. Bad reviews have entertainment value; badly written reviews are just a waste of time and money.

  • duckncover #25 2 years ago

    Has anyone told a 'better than Darkfall' joke yet?

  • gmjapan #26 2 years ago

    The Darkfall legacy aside, that actually sounds like how to do a really good expansion...

  • TheElfishGene #27 2 years ago

    @ChthonicEcho

    OMG that was quite possibly one of the funniest things i have ever seen in my life....seriously i'm still wiping away the tears.

  • Drool #28 2 years ago

    Objective journalism at its best.

  • mingster #29 2 years ago

    Dorkfail

  • DrMGinius #30 2 years ago

    Foo Eurogamer, fooooo, fooooooo!

    I am very glad to see our old mate Bloo the Dork there in image 9/11.

  • Augmentation #31 2 years ago

    If a re-re-review were actually done, I would like to see it reviewed by both Kieron and Ed. I genuinely disliked Ed's review (as it came across as somewhat whiney), while I really liked Kieron's review (as it conveyed the obviously negative aspects of the game in a fair yet lighthearted manner) so I'd like to see if the re-re-reviews would have similar tones, respectively.

  • Trikk #32 2 years ago

    @Augmentation

    I think you put too much faith in Ed's journalistic integrity. Kieron could probably do a fair review but I don't think Ed would ever give the game a chance.

    He didn't really play it the first time around so why do you think the second time would be any different? It would simply be a hit piece to "prove his point".