Spotlight On: Everquest II: The Sentinel's Fate

We recently took an advance look at Everquest II: Sentinel's Fate, the sixth expansion pack for Everquest II. The expansion is intended to mainly provide more monsters to stomp and more shiny treasures for high-level players, though it will also launch with new functionality to welcome newer players into the fold, such as a new "storyteller" system. This system will guide new players along a specific route through hand-picked zones in the game determined by expert players to be the easiest and most efficient way to gain experience points and advance a character.

Among other things, The Sentinel's Fate will increase the game's experience level cap from 80 to 90, as well as add two new overland zones, a dozen new dungeons, and an entirely new kind of gameplay: battlegrounds. These will be cooperative, team-based player-versus-player battles that will take place on medium- to large-sized maps. The expansion is also scheduled to ship with two six-on-six battlegrounds and one 24-on-24 battleground.

As you might expect, the new expansion will continue Everquest II's ongoing story arc that involves the fantasy world of Norrath recovering from a ruinous cataclysm while being set upon by a new threat, The Void. The Void will play a key role in the expansion's story, though it's suggested that even this mighty foe may soon give way to a new nemesis that will threaten the land.

In the meantime, the expansion will add Odus, the longtime home of the copiously cranial Erudite race from the original Everquest, as well as the Ruins of Old Paineel, better known as The Hole--a dungeon that also appeared in the original Everquest and will be entirely underwater. The Hole will be home to mysterious doings, including an evil plot hinted at in writings on the dungeon walls. The Hole, as well as other dungeons in the expansion, will have a toggle for "normal" and "nightmare" difficulty to let more casual groups tackle dungeon content but will reward high-end raiding guilds who take on "nightmare" level dungeons with the best rare items the expansion has to offer.

Everquest II: The Sentinel's Fate is already up and running on Sony Online's beta server with about 10,000 testers and will launch in a retail box on February 16 packed in with the original game, as well as all previous expansions. It will also be available as a digital download on February 23, but in the meantime, see more new screenshots of the expansion in GameSpot's screenshot gallery.