April 2022 is here, and there are some exciting MMORPG launches and new content happening this month. Let’s take a look at 5 major noteworthy happenings this month.
Black Desert Online’s Eternal Winter Expansion
On the 6th of April, BDO players will be able jump into the Eternal Winter expansion. This is a brand new region, full of frost and snow, and it contains a bunch of new monster areas in addition to mysterious new storylines and lore to explore. Throughout the zone there’s a new frostbite debuff that will hinder your adventure if you don’t find ways to keep warm. The expansion launch will also bring out the brand new class to play, Drakania. She’s a melee two-handed sword wielding heroine, the arch-nemesis of the Guardian class, and it’ll be interesting to see if that is explored further at all in this update. Finally coming with this launch is a revamp to the Balenos region, which will now contain all new story-cutscenes.
Rise Online Launches
Now do we have a new MMORPG launch this month? Yes we do. Rise Online, the spiritual successor to Knight Online, will have its free to play launch on April 15th. Developed by Roko Game Studios, Rise Online will be available in both English and Turkish languages, and has all the trappings of a classic MMORPG. It’s got a large open world to quest in, a substantial PvE storyline, 2 factions to pick from for PvP and four classes available at launch. Now while all of that sounds normal, here’s the interesting part, it’s also a blockchain MMORPG, so it will have NFT, or Non-fungible token.
Final Fantasy XIV Patch 6.1
The big launch this month is of course, Patch 6.1 Newfound Adventure, the first major update of the Endwalker expansion cycle. So, what’s in it? There’s a bunch of good stuff, but we’re highlighting the most important ones. Most notably, the Main Scenario Quest continues, and once you’ve completed that there’s plenty of new side quests to tackle. Along the way, you can dabble in a new dungeon, a new alliance raid, ultimate raid, and a trial as well.
Outside of current PvE, PvP players will get a new 5v5 mode called the Crystalline Conflict which contains new PvP rewards and improvements, and for housing, a new lottery system will go live in this update, kinda like the green card, but the reward which you paid for in advanced, is a shiny new house in Ishgard if you win. Finally for those not at current content yet, there’s good news because Patch 6.1 will also implement changes to the base game, a realm reborn, like adding the trust system to the original MSQ line now to make things go even quicker if you’d rather not wait in queue. Safe to say this is a pretty big update and while the release date only says mid-April currently, we’re bound to learn more in the coming weeks.
Guild Wars 2 Revives Living World Season 1
ArenaNet will be bringing back a huge chunk of missing content this month, that players for years that joined the game post 2014 had to learn about in dialogue and text only. On April 19th, for the first time ever, Living World Season 1 will be coming back to the game permanently, over five episodes, and the first episode Flame and Frost will arrive that week, to kick off the beginning of Scarlett’s War. This will be free for everyone including free players, and will now offer a cohesive narrative bridge for both returning and new players that are starting the Elder Dragon story line. On top of that, this is a good opportunity to earn those legacy achievement points and rewards. On the same day the Challenge Mode for the End of Dragons expansion strike missions will also go live, so gather your buddies and happy hunting.
World of Warcraft will Announce Next Expansion
Something else exciting happening on April 19th, is the Blizzard reveal for World of Warcraft’s next expansion. At this point in time, we know almost nothing about it except the obvious fact that it will probably continue the story-line from the Shadowlands epilogue in Eternity’s End Until then, WoW players, if you’re returning to the game, there’s plenty to get caught up on in terms of new content with the latest update, or WoW Classic or even the new Sylvanas novel that got released last week.
