WildStar Is Hitting Steam with Lots of New Content

Carbine Studios' MMO WildStar is getting a Steam release, alongside new content in an update called "Destination Arcterra." It'll be released over the next few months.

The new update will add a brand new area called Arcterra. It's a frozen wasteland full of ruins to explore and creatures to defeat. Some of the new features include "snowballing" boss encounters that increase in difficulty as players fill up a boss-killing meter. Players start off by killing two-person bosses across the zone, eventually building up to five and 20-person bosses.

Another feature is a dynamic blizzard event that pits factions against each other. 20-person bosses show up around the region, dropping keys when players dispatch them. Whichever faction gets enough keys first, unlocks a dungeon and has access to it for 24 hours. Arcterra will also have its own unique loot.

The update also includes an instance called the Vault of Archon which features unique gameplay mechanics and boss encounters. It continues where the Nexus Saga story left off in Journey into OMNICore-1 and will have new environments, cinematics, and fully-voiced NPCs. The Exiles faction will be led by Dorian Walker, the famous explorer and discoverer of the planet Nexus, while the Dominion will follow Artemis Zin, the intergalactic celebrity and adventurer.

Players will be able to take part in a new raid that's coming in an additional update. Redmoon Terror is a 20-person raid that features new spell mechanics, along with the ability to adjust the difficulty of each boss before you start. It will be available on a public test realm in early 2016.

Another new system coming allows players to upgrade the power of their items, weapons, armor, and runes up to five levels using upgrade components. Players will also be able to salvage equipment to gain components--lower level components will be able to be combined into higher level ones.

WildStar went free-to-play last year and is available now on PC. It hits Steam at some point during the first half of this year.

And Steam might not be the only platform that WildStar is coming to in the future. Developer Carbine talked about consoles last year, saying it "seems to make a lot of sense" to bring WildStar to the PS4 and Xbox One.