Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.0 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Greg Kasavin
• Reviewed on: 12/22/2003
• Updated on: 12/23/2003
• Released on: 10/28/2003
• Originally published on GameSpot: Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis (PC) Review

When it was released in late 2001, Mythic Games' massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot helped to set a new standard of quality for other games of this type. Among other interesting features, it allowed players to side with one of three unique realms (respectively based on Arthurian, Celtic, and Norse mythology) and eventually let them battle against players from the other sides. For the developers at Mythic, this basically meant that they needed to develop three separate online RPGs, since the three realms were completely self-contained and each had its own character classes, monsters, quests, and more. No wonder, then, that some Dark Age players started to complain that the game was lacking in content. They felt the design of the game was spread thin. Last year, the game's first retail expansion pack, Shrouded Isles, added a good chunk of new territory that members of each realm could explore. This year's expansion (which, technically, is an expansion to an expansion since both the original game and Shrouded Isles are required) abandons the realm-specific design and adds still more new territory that characters from each realm can travel to, explore, and solve quests in. Here, high-level characters can become stronger still, though nothing about this expansion is well suited to new or returning players.

As a matter of fact, Trials of Atlantis probably didn't need to be released as a commercial product in stores. Active, dedicated Dark Age of Camelot players would have been willing to download it directly, and they're the ones who'd appreciate the new ability--and would have the time--to continue to advance their high-level characters by winning powerful artifacts and gaining master levels, which yield new abilities that make characters even more versatile. The new Atlantean lands do offer some challenges for relatively low-level players (level 20 and up), but you'll need a character of at least 40th level to participate in the main attractions--the trials of Atlantis themselves--which are a linear series of epic quests, each with multiple parts. Even if you have a high-level character, unless you're an active member of a player guild, you might have trouble finding the help you need to face the trials. The new lands of Atlantis challenge players to accomplish specific goals, so don't expect to see players just hanging out, waiting for others to show up. Getting to Atlantis is easy enough, via new ports in the respective realms' Shrouded Isles territories, but you'd best show up with an entourage.

The three competing realms don't all congregate in Atlantis. The lands are mirror-imaged for each realm, so the entrances are in different places, and the loot is different. But the lay of the land itself isn't different. Trials of Atlantis also doesn't make any changes to the realm-versus-realm gameplay of Dark Age of Camelot, which is where dedicated players end up spending most of their time since they've usually already maxed-out their characters through killing countless monsters. Mythic promises a downloadable realm-versus-realm expansion in the future, so for now, Dark Age players can concentrate on strengthening their characters with the new loot and new master-level abilities featured in Trials of Atlantis.

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