The MMORPG Black Desert will receive its new expansion “Land of the Morning Light” on June 14. This will do away with the usual grind spots and replace them with boss fights. Additionally, it offers some unusual innovations. We at MeinMMO will present you the contents in more detail.
What is included in Land of the Morning Light? A major focus of the new expansion is on the story. However, it is not told in a linear quest series, but instead features 15 different, small story chapters that you can follow in a new “Story Book” within the framework of 8 stories. As already in the “Eternal Winter” expansion, there will be cutscenes and spoken dialogues.
Typical grind spots, for which Black Desert is well known, will also be omitted. Instead, there will be the Boss Rush. In the new area, you can expect a total of 8(+1) bosses, each with 10 difficulty levels. The fights are designed to be challenging and equipped with various mechanics.
The interesting thing about the boss fights is that your gear does not play a significant role. Instead, you can level new attributes specific to these fights. This especially helps players who have not yet grinded for strong gear.
Moreover, the expansion brings:
- New enemy types
- 2 new housing spots
- A new ship
- A new minigame for the life skills
- New endgame equipment
You can watch the first trailer here:
Beautiful environment, immersive story and a new mechanic for boss fights
What is the setting of the expansion? The new areas are said to look graphically beautiful, with huge bamboo trees and colorful flower fields. You can also expect several new enemy races, including the Horang – two-legged tigers – as well as the Hare (rabbits) and the Tortoise (tortoises). Additionally, new workers and a production node will be included.
Black Desert’s Executive Producer Jaehee Kim said in an interview with us:
With Land of the Morning Light, players will be able to experience breathtaking new graphics that are inspired not only by the Korean Joseon Dynasty [the last phase of the royal era], but also have never been seen before in any currently available video game, allowing them to experience something entirely new.
We believe that the new expansion will bring a certain freshness to the game that goes beyond the weekly updates that Black Desert provides to players.
A part of this freshness comes from the story. This will be told in over 100 cutscenes and 5,000 voice lines. However, it deviates from the overarching story of Black Desert and focuses specifically on the island and especially the bosses there. Land of the Morning Light is therefore designed to function “standalone” and make sense even if one only plays the expansion’s story.
Overall, there will be 15 story chapters, all of which begin in the new city of Dalbeol Village. You will activate them via a story book. The order does not matter, but you can only follow one story at a time.
Although developing stories with such a focus is costly and requires various review processes and localizations, we will continue to face these challenges as we want our players to enjoy our game in an even more immersive and exciting environment.
Jaehee Kim
By the way, anyone who completes all 15 chapters will receive +1 AP and +1 DP for the entire account family – a nice little bonus.
What is behind the boss rush? The centerpiece of the new areas is the boss rush, which replaces traditional grind spots. There are 9 bosses, each with its own theme, 10 difficulty levels and its own attribute, including sun, moon, and earth.
You should be able to defeat the low-level bosses without the special attribute, but for the high levels, you will need to focus on that. There are the “Jewels of Light,” which you can collect in the new area. You can then invest these into an attribute. However, their number is limited, so you can only specialize in a few attributes and not be ideal for every boss. For 2 million silver, you can reset the distribution at any time.
According to the developers, about 90% of the damage and your defense comes from the new attributes and only about 10% comes from your normal equipment. This means that even players without ideal endgame gear can be useful.
The system is intentionally aimed at new players, the developers say. However, for veterans, there are leaderboards for speedkills. In this case, every little percentage of gear also matters. You can take down up to five bosses per week.
What other new contents are there? In addition to new endgame armor, life skills have also been worked on. There is a quest line for collecting plants, which then unlocks a minigame. This will randomly appear during further collection activities, and upon success, you will receive more loot.
For hunting, there is also a new Marni rifle, which deals more damage and gives more loot when you take down creatures with a headshot.
How do I access the new content? To be able to enter the new expansion, you must complete the “Abyss One: Magnus” questline. This consists of a total of 110 quests starting at level 15. However, for newcomers, this should be feasible in a few hours.
Land of the Morning Light will be released in the first half of the year
When will the expansion be released? In Korea, the expansion was released on March 29, while the western version will be released on June 14. The developers mention localization as the main reason for the delay between the two versions.
The localization process for Land of the Morning Light is proceeding more smoothly than in previous updates, and we expect it to be completed earlier than originally planned […].
Is it worth starting anew with the expansion? We also asked Jaehee Kim this question. He says:
Black Desert welcomes everyone in the world who wants to join our adventure. We want to provide an experience where every player can enjoy the game as they see fit, which is why we are always thinking about the experience of new players.
What we are really trying to achieve is to bring joy to all players, whether they enjoy fishing, gathering, or fighting monsters – so much so that they don’t even realize they are staring at the ocean all day, thinking how beautiful it is. […].
We hope that Black Desert becomes more than just a game: a companion and a place where players can come together and share their joy, sorrow, frustration, and happiness in life.
A good time to start in Black Desert is the new seasons. In them, you level up characters faster, get useful gear from quests, and PvP is temporarily disabled. Currently, the spring season is running until April 19. The next season is expected to begin in May.
What do you think about the new expansion? Do the ideas and concepts appeal to you? Or can you simply not warm to Black Desert? Feel free to write it in the comments.
