Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Expansion Announced, Along with Two New Gameplay Modes

Every week since its launch in May, Capcom released new downloadable content for their fantasy action RPG game, Dragon's Dogma. Unfortunately, most of the DLC was rather uninteresting. You either got cosmetics, equipment that was quickly supplanted by higher level gear, or dull fetch quests. Now it looks like Capcom is hoping to provide something more substantial with Dark Arisen, a new expansion slated for next year.  Details are sparse at the moment but I welcome any reason to get back into Dragon's Dogma. Check out the trailer below.

Capcom has also announced that they will be releasing two new modes free of charge before the end of this year. A hard mode and a speed run mode. The new speed run mode challenges players to finish the game as quickly as possible for various rewards. I'm sure it's safe to assume that this mode will have online leaderboard support to record the fastest times.

The new hard mode is exactly what you'd expect, harder enemies and rewards that reflect that. This is the mode I'm most interested in. One of the biggest problems I had with Dragon's Dogma was that New Game Plus was practically unchanged from the first playthrough. The enemies didn't get any harder and since equipment and levels carried over I steamrolled through everything. I find it odd that it took this long to add a hard mode into the game but I'm glad they're at least addressing the issue.