There’s a lot to unpack in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen’s April newsletter. Not only does it cover the Ratkin species from the bestiary and a dev spotlight with CTO and Lead Programmer Daniel Krenn, but it deep-dives Black Rose Keep, the massive multi-level indoor/outdoor dungeon being demoed at PAX this year.
“You will be able to revisit BRK and you’ll want to because the level range is very well spread out, depending on which area of the zone you’re in,” Lead Writer Justin Gerhart writes. “That’s not to say we have fenced off portions that check your level before entering. There’s a fair amount of intermingling between tiers throughout, but with higher concentrations of specific tiers in specific locations. Unless you’ve spent your whole char life outside of this area you should hit sections you won’t be able to progress through your first time in. The goal was to make BRK a memorable and substantial experience for players, and planning for revisitations and diversity of content were a critical part of that.”
Massively OP’s Eliot Lefebvre got hands-on with Black Rose Keep last week, coming away from his combat experience finding it impressively solid and familiar to fans of old-school dungeon-oriented MMORPGs. Worth pointing out is that while the devs say it’s a totally campable dungeon (“It just feels that way with the layout,” Game Designer Tim Wathen says), the demo was more crawly, albeit a slow-paced one.
