Black Desert Online was launched in 2014 and has attracted players with its endless progression, fighting game style combat, and huge number of playable classes. There is no level limit, and experience gain slows down dramatically once you hit 62, the "soft cap," but it's still there. Over the past decade, the studio has released updates focused on PvP, PvE, and PvT.

(player vs. tree. Crafting a lot)

But what the studios have not done is release expansions that focus more on the story than on grinding out tons of monsters. Until now.

The Land of Morning Sunrise is a new BDO update that will be released on June 14. This new continent is far northwest of the land currently occupied by the heroes to shave a few more Blood Wolves before they go to bed. The continent is heavily inspired by Korean mythology and medieval culture, and developer Pearl Abyss hopes that global players who have been exposed to a lot of Korean media over the past few years, such as Squid Games, The Glory, and BTS, will find it familiar and interesting.

On this island, they will find many new things, such as Korean monsters called tokebi and new manors to decorate. At least you won't find zones full of monsters in the overworld. The expansion consists of eight quest lines that you can explore in any order you like; instead of a fetch quest to bring 15 weasels and 10 goblin gobs, you will follow each quest to explore the island and learn a bit of Korean folklore. Once you have unlocked the secrets of the fox spirit Gumiho and the King of the Golden Pigs, you can take on the battle and move on to the next quest.

All of this culminates in the final quest of the expansion, which includes several more secret quest lines and bosses. In fact, new players can start their BDO experience here, rolling a new character in the land.

But for existing players who have been playing diligently, the blood, sweat, and tears will not have been wasted. While 90% of a character's AP and DP will be calculated from the new system, 10% will be directly correlated to the character's stats. This will give the existing badasses an advantage while giving the rest of the newbies a chance to fight new bosses.

They will need that leg up if they want to climb to the top of the weekly leaderboard. At the end of "Land of the Morning Sun," each of the eight bosses (and two end bosses) will scale Calamity's 10 levels, with the bosses getting progressively more difficult at each level. Players will not even be able to challenge levels after 5 until a player of the same class has beaten Calamity 5 and the other players are unlocked. The leaderboards are divided by class to ensure a fair challenge, with some classes finding certain bosses easier to take on, while others are tougher.

An attribute system is in place to help players who first unlock Calamity and aspire to the glory of being the top of the leaderboard. As players unlock story quests on the island, they are awarded light orbs corresponding to the attributes of sun, moon, and earth. Collecting more Light Orbs will increase your basic stats and make it easier to take on the Boss Blitz.

For a game about to celebrate its 10th anniversary with a formula of kung fu battles and monster grinding, "Land of the Morning Sun" is a risky bet; with no PvP content and no monster zone, this new expansion is definitely a bit out of their comfort zone.

What is clear, however, is that they believe the gamble is worth it. Pearl Abyss has spared no effort to attract new players. Between the attribute balancing seen here and recent updates like Arena of Solare (a PvP zone with pre-made characters that are all equally geared), they realized they needed to do something about character scaling and the new player experience. Obviously.

It's a good bet; there's nothing MMO fans love more than world-first competition. This boss-based gameplay should be a breath of fresh air for new and old players alike, and it's clear that a tremendous amount of care and attention has gone into building this new area and making it feel Korean in history and culture.