In the comics, it’s happened countless times; Wolverine gets brainwashed and kills a bunch of people, Spider-Man has to work for a villain to protect his Aunt May, Green Lantern goes bonkers and wipes out all of his teammates, hell, even Superboy recently came back to DC Comics just to punch a bunch of holes in reality.  Sometimes heroes go bad.  Likewise, we’ve seen plenty of former villains change their ways and decide to serve the greater good.  With today’s announcement by Paragon Studios, soon, we’ll have the option to change our stripes in the virtual superhero universe of City of Heroes.

Going Rogue will be the title of the second City of Heroes expansion (City of Villains being the last), and will give players access to enter an alternate version of the CoH universe, called Praetoria.  This parallel reality will allow players to dip into some moral grey areas that have yet to be explored in the main game.  With evil versions of familiar heroes and heroic versions of known criminals, Praetoria seems like the kind of place where a hero might lose perspective of what’s important, or a villain might start acting right, Changes like this are reflected by the expansion’s new moral compass, which is affected by the missions you take on, the decisions you make, and even some of the behaviors you display, and can eventually change your alignment.  


In a press release, Paragon general manager Brian Clayton stated that “For years, players could choose between playing as a hero or a villain. Now we will present a third, malleable path where players can be affected by the results of their actions, enabling them to develop, unveil new perspectives, and overcome further new challenges.”  


it’s always good to see a publisher support their MMOs, and between this expansion and the Architect expansion, it really seems like Paragon Studios listened to their users, which is always a good idea.  No release date has been given for the expansion, but getting it out before Champions Online would make sense, so expect it some time before July 14.