City of Heroes News & Events & Guides

Paragon Studios has announced a new iteration of its flagship title. Called City of Heroes Freedom, players will have the opportunity to play content for free or take advantage of premium packages. The team plans to launch CoH: Freedom and Issue 21: Convergence later this year. Folks attending the San Diego ComiCon will be able to check out the game as well.

“ Freedom is about getting more content into the hands of our players, whether they are subscribing or playing for free”, said Brian Clayton, Executive Producer at Paragon Studios. “To do this, we’ve looked at City of Heroes from the ground up and focused on three ways to enhance the experience by giving our players more choices, greater rewards and the best content we've ever produced. And for the first time ever, players can choose to enjoy more than seven years of content for free(City of Heroes influence ).”

Released five months before World of Warcraft, which would go on to redefine the meaning of "successful MMO," City of Heroes wowed players and the gaming media with its innovations. Winning several 2004 "Game of the Year"-type awards from various gaming magazines and websites, the game attracted comments such as this one from Computer Gaming World: "City of Heroes blows a super powered gust of fresh air into an increasingly stale sword-and-sorcery MMO world." The game launched with the most detailed character creator ever seen in an MMORPG, as well as game mechanics rarely (CoH Influence) seen before. Sidekicking allowed characters of various levels to play together, and instanced missions negated much of the traditional spawn camping seen in other games.