City of Heroes: Shadow of the Past Previews

Two quick previews of Cryptic’s free “Shadows of the Past” expansion for City of Heroes have hit the web. The first is over at GameSpot:

The updates will consist of new zones that will be sizable and will offer content in the form of new quests, new instanced missions, and new gameplay features. The Shadowshard region will be especially huge and will consist of four separate subzones. Both new areas will feature new monsters to fight. The Shadowshard region actually exists in a nether realm where landmasses float in space and where they are connected by energy signatures–launch pads that send characters flying to the next island (flying characters will have an easier time of getting around, but they will also encounter flying enemies).

And the second is over at IGN PC:

Badges are divided into a number of categories, but the two biggies that should inspire explorers to head on out and check out the area are the Tourism and History badges. Tourism badges will be given out for finding special areas in the game. They might be hidden in back alleys or in front of buildings, it’ll be up to each hero to find them and add them to their collection. There are a number of them in each of the different sections of Paragon City so players should have a good time exploring for quite some time.

History badges will be a combination of areas and missions together. They’ll give players insight into the back story of Paragon City and the heroes that defended it in the past and continue to do so in the present. The catch to these badges is that the recipe of missions and locations are hidden. Players will have to explore and investigate to figure them out. Of course, as Emmert pointed out, that only lasts until someone puts the solutions up onto the Internet, but there isn’t much avoiding that unfortunate side effect.