Blade & Soul continues its story with Silverfrost this week

After years of cultivating a massive fanbase in Asia, Blade & Soul has been off to a good start in the Western markets. After reaching one million users in the first week and now boasting a fanbase of well over two million players, NCSoft is keeping the updates coming at a rapid pace. Just weeks after the publisher introduced the game's Warlock class, Shacknews ventured up to this year's Game Developers Conference to learn more about Blade & Soul's next big content expansion: Silverfrost.

The Silverfrost expansion will take players to an entirely new continent, further building on the world that Blade & Soul has established to this point. It's expected to increase the size of the world by roughly 25 percent and include multiple new zones, quests, and dailies. Furthermore, it will continue the player's personal story and set the stage for the climactic confrontation with the treacherous Jinsoyun.

In addition to the new continent, players will continue their character progression with Blade & Soul's level cap increasing to 50. With the new level cap will come new Harmony skills, which NCSoft will reveal more details on in the coming weeks. There will be plenty of ways to exercise these new skills with the debut of areas like Grand Harvest Square, which will contain a daily timed instance (a new feature for Blade & Soul) that the world's warriors can complete for rewards. This instance will be available at random times and interested players can set system notifications to let them know when the Grand Harvest Square instance is open.

As for those looking to party up, a trio of new dungeons will be included: the undead-filled Awakened Necropolis, the yeti domain known as Avalanche Den, and serpent (and Medusa) haven called Lair of the Frozen Fang. New 24-player instances will also be available, as will a new Clan level increase. Those that have joined a Clan can now level up and unlock the ability to craft customized Clan outfits.

Meanwhile, the content updates will not stop there for Blade & Soul. Future updates will include:

• Sogun's Lament: This will feature new 4-6 player Heroic dungeons with whole new tiers of weapons and accessories. Players will really need to earn these rewards, as the content here is said to be extremely high difficulty and will only be open to higher-level characters.
• Cold Storage: This features a slightly easier dungeon for up to six players that can be completed once a day for some quick drops. Find a reset token and you'll be able to complete this again.
• Sundered Nexus: Blade & Soul marches towards its endgame with new 4 and 6-player Heroic dungeons. Meanwhile, the Naryu Labyrinth that debuted with the recent Warlock update will get a visual makeover.
• Altar of Divine Will: This will feature another 6-member Heroic dungeon that can be completed once a day and twice with a reset token. It will also offer up the final battle with the villainous Jinsoyun, but take heart, brave heroes. NCSoft is saying this will absolutely not be an easy battle.
• Whirlwind Valley: PvP players have not been forgotten. In fact, this will mark a unique addition to the competitive aspect of the game. This will feature teams of six competing against one another, as teams look to control the map's nodes to win the match. What's particularly unique here is that gear stats will be taken into account. While 1v1 and 3v3 will still operate as a gear-agnostic mode, Whirlwind Valley will allow players to keep their gear buffs.

The march towards the fight with Jinsoyun will begin with the arrival of the Silverfrost expansion. Blade & Soul players can get their hands on it this coming Wednesday. For more, check out the trailer below.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?