The main enemy is the undead wizard Akar Kessell and his minions

Mar 5, 2014 14:57 GMT  ·  By

The development team at Cryptic Studios announces that the third major free expansion for its Neverwinter MMO is designed to take gamers to one of the best known areas of the Dungeon & Dragons Forgotten Realms universe, Icewind Dale.

The team says that it will introduce major new areas for gamers to explore, with innovative enemies to fight against and quests that deal with the unique nature of the zone and with a big new threat, the Black Ice corruption created by an undead wizard called Akar Kessell.

In the official announcement for the Icewind Dale Neverwinter expansion the company states, “We’re very excited about how PvP will be expanding and transforming in Module 3: Curse of Icewind Dale and we know you’ll enjoy all the PvE content in the upcoming expansion as well. We can’t wait to reveal more!”

Craig Zinkievich, the leader of the team working on the MMO, says that player feedback was taken into account when choosing the location and that long-term fans of D&D will be able to recognize elements also seen in the old Icewind Dale titles from Black Isle and the original R.A. Salvatore novels.

The Black Ice that cover the region is one of the major new resources for Neverwinter players and it will allow them to create powerful new items that will enhance the abilities of their characters.

The team adds, “There are two new factions being introduced that will serve as the basis of the conflict over Black Ice in Icewind Dale: the local council of Ten-Towners capitalizing on the black ice trade to grow their wealth, and the Arcane Brotherhood who seeks to unlock the mysteries behind the black ice. Each offer temporary contracts to adventurers to further their goals in Icewind Dale.”

Icewind Dale is also introducing an entirely new Player versus Player campaign, designed to encourage players to battle each other for interesting rewards, and leaderboards are being added to the MMO in order to have a clear ranking of the best players in the world.

The Hunter Ranger class is also getting access to its own Paragon path, the Pathfinder, which means that it will become more attractive to the player community.

There are also smaller changes that will be delivered via a major patch.

More information about the Icewind Dale expansion for Neverwinter will be added in the coming week and Cryptic does not currently have an official launch date for it.