Last month DC Universe Online went free to play, a move which breathed new life into the previously niche superhero MMO, which Sony claims has gained more than a million new players since it made the switch to the “freemium” business model. Not content to rest on their laurels, Sony has announced a new DLC expansion for the MMO, entitled “Lightning Strikes.”
DCUO’s first expansion was focused on Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, and likewise, Lightning Strikes singularly focuses on The Justice League’s fastest member, The Flash. A team of super villains has traveled back in time to try to prevent Barry Allen from gaining the powers of the Speed Force, and, for whatever reason, the Flash himself and the rest of the Justice League can’t be bothered to fix this problem on their own, so it’s up to players to stop the villains and save the timeline. While the motivation for hero-side players is clear, players with their own villain characters will have to team up with the Justice League on this one, since super villain Professor Zoom’s existence is tied to Barry Allen’s, meaning that the Secret Society of Super Villains also has a vested interested in making sure the timeline does not get altered.
But of bigger interest to players is the host of new content the DLC is set to provide: players can now create characters with new electricity based superpowers, which fulfill two roles: predictably, characters with the new Electricity power set can hurl lightning bolts for ranged DPS, but they can also fulfill a second, unexpected roll, as healers. Using their powers to turn themselves into human defibrillators, Electric characters can jolt life back into wounded allies. The new class will have two, divergent skilltrees that’ll allow players to customize whether they want to focus on offense or healing, or a combination of both.
And of course, a game centered around The Flash couldn’t be complete without the addition of Central City as a new, instanced zone within the game. While not quite as big as the game’s renditions of Gotham or Metropolis, The Flash’s hometown still has all the locales that DC fans would expect, with the city’s Flash museum being the central hub and focal point of the DLC content.
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