Mass Effect 3 Earth and Leviathan DLC Detailed

I may be one of the few here at 4PP that are still excited about the future of Mass Effect, but that doesn't mean some of you aren't. So I found it particularly enticing when, just after E3, it was leaked that the new multiplayer DLC pack would take place on everyone's favorite Homo sapien home world. After having leaked (once again) ahead of the DLC's official announcement at Comic-Con this coming Sunday, Bioware has decided to officially spill the beans and announce the new content.

Entitled simply "Earth", the new multiplayer map pack will arrive this Tuesday for free to all Mass Effect 3 owners. The pack will include three maps, six new characters to play as and a set of three new weapons.  Players will be defending their home planet in either Rio, London or Vancouver as N7 operatives that look very impressive. Details below.

Adept class: N7 Fury
Abilities: Throw, Annihilation Field, Dark Channel
Description: Fury operatives use implants to fuel biotics and their incredible movement speed. These operatives wind an unpredictable path on the battlefield, moving in and out of combat before returning to unleash a sweeping biotic attack on their unsuspecting targets.

Soldier class: N7 Destroyer
Abilities: Multi-Frag Grenade, Missile Launcher, Devastator Mode, T5-V Battlesuit
Description: The Destroyer's T5-V Battlesuit gives these strong-but-slow soldiers mech-like protection. Driven by eezo-assisted actuators, these frontline troopers carry heavy weapons onto the battlefield.

Engineer class: N7 Demolisher
Abilities: Homing Grenade, Arc Grenade, Supply Pylon
Description: The Demolisher uses grenades to attack at range and to terrorize the battlefield. Demolishers can also create a supply pylon
that stocks allies with an unending reserve of grenades and thermal reloads.

Sentinel class: N7 Paladin
Abilities: Snap Freeze, Incinerate, Energy Drain
Description: The Paladin carries a powerful omni-shield onto the battlefield to block enemy fire. The Paladin also uses the shield as a
heavy-melee weapon that, when modified with incendiary or cryo upgrades, creates a devastating combination attack.

Infiltrator class: N7 Shadow
Abilities: Tactical Cloak, Shadow Strike, Electric Slash
Description: Shadow infiltrators use implants to dramatically improve agility, making them slippery combatants on the battlefield. Their monomolecular blades are a menace from cover and close range.

Vanguard class: N7 Slayer
Abilities: Phase Disruptor, Biotic Charge, Biotic Slash
Description: Slayers use implants to dramatically improve mobility. Their dizzying sword attacks can hit multiple opponents, and the Slayer's ability to slip fire makes them hard to pin down on the battielfield.

In addition to these new classes players will be able to obtain three new weapons: the N7 Piranha Shotgun, the N7 Typhoon Assault Rifle and the Acolyte Pistol. Bioware also felt it necessary to add a fourth difficulty level, Platinum, to the mix. Yea, because Gold was not difficult enough. As with the previous map packs, players will have to unlock the content through reinforcement packs. The content will launch next Tuesday, July 17.

(click on the image below to get a closer look, though they are not in order)

That wasn't all though: we have word about the game's first single-player downloadable content. Though the details for this one are scarce at the moment, word is that the content, entitled Leviathan, looks to fill in more of the backstory about the Reapers. Set in the middle of the game's campaign, Shepard and crew are sent to an occupied and indoctrinated Batarrian home world. In orbit, they find a Reaper that identifies itself as Leviathan. Leviathan has evidently gone rogue from the rest of the Reaper fleet after killing one of their own, and could potentially become an ally in the construction of the Crucible and the elimination of his species' threat to the galaxy.

The above isn't completely confirmed however: the information was pulled directly from the files that exist within the Extended Cut DLC that arrived recently. Credence was given to this by English actor Anthony Skordi who claimed yesterday to being the voice actor for Leviathan. Given this, and the track record of content hinted at in in-game files for Bioware titles though, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say this is real.

We'll give you more details about the Leviathan DLC when it becomes available in the future, possibly Sunday.