Players will be chasing on the trail of the legend of Strahd, a nobleman who gave the nomadic Vistaria free passage through his lands (sounds like a decent guy) and also damned himself and everyone near him to an eternity of torment (less decent). If you’re unfamiliar with the Ravenloft setting, it’s a good quick primer about why the members of your immediate friend circle who are familiar with it respond to requests to enter with a flip-off and a laugh.
PWE has also released a dev blog today as well detailing the Barovia zone coming in the update, chiefly from a technical and design standpoint.
“One of the aspects of the zone that changed the most early in development was the layout and general features of the terrain. The Village of Barovia was originally on the eastern edge of the zone. We wanted players to get right into their questing the moment they loaded in. We moved it a bit more to the middle to allow for a more cinematic reveal of Castle Ravenloft and the village. Then, we moved it even more to the middle so that none of the questing neighborhoods felt much farther than the others. We didn’t want players to feel that getting a quest in one section of the zone was inherently less fun because of travel time. Balancing the need for quick access to questing and enjoyable questing once you’ve started was something that we had to playtest until it felt right. Rapidly iterating on the core concept of a feature early in development is crucial to getting the best result at the end.”
