Dark Age of Camelot: Labyrinth of the Minotaur (PC)

This is a review by: Rejaq

Expansions to online games are tricky beasts to get right. Balancing the new content against the old and making sure that there is enough new things for both old and new players alike to get to grip with is not easy. Not at all.

Dark Age of Camelot: Labyrinth of the Minotaur has emerged as the seventh expansion to the game based around the mythical lands of Albion, Hibernia and Midgard and it is possibly the best expansion since certainly Catacombs and quite possibly since the first, that of the Shrouded Isles. It is an evolutionary expansion rather than revolutionary, it refines many things even as it adds to them and this is welcome after the major inclusions in the Darkness Rising expansion last year.

The Uroz, Minotaur have returned from millennia of absence from the three realms. Once hugely powerful and adept at various skills and magics they have dwindled in importance and like many of the other races of antiquity they are all but forgotten. Now they have returned offering aid to all three realms and they have revealed the Labyrinth they once lorded over within the Isle of Agramon and the deep, dark, infernal secret that lies at its very heart, spreading darkness like ink in water.

There are three clans, each convinced it is in the right, each in rebellion against the others and each trying to gain aid in their conflict both against those other clans and the fallen of their race in the depths of the Labyrinth and against the foe which drove them out initially – Demons who posed as Gods. Each clan has approached a realm and each has offered to teach the secret of their arts to those who wished to learn, that of the mighty fighting style of the Mauler.

The core of the expansion is aimed at the higher level player, those who are in the endgame and who take part in the Realm Vs Realm (RvR) aspect of the game along with the new RvR Dungeon area, the titular Labyrinth – a truly sprawling area, split over four levels and filled with new and dangerous entities – new champion level quests based in and around the labyrinth area. New objects of power include Mythrian artefacts that can give great abilities to a character and the new Minotaur Relics, mini-powerhouses of personal might that demand a regular diet of RvR kills to remain with you. Further, the Champion Levels have had another five tiers added and there are a further five levels of mounts that can now be purchased.

However the starting character has not been ignored. A revised set of starting quests have been implemented, no longer rigidly adhering to a fixed storyline, indeed reminiscent if slightly more standardised of the original quests found deep in the mists of the game. There is also an XP bonus at lower levels allowing for a fairly rapid advancement balancing out the usual concerns about a vibrant high level population when encountering it as a lower level character.