Sega revealed a lot of exciting updates coming to Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis in a new NGS Headline video, including the team addressing a few major player concerns about the game. One of the biggest reveals wasn't about the new class, upgrades or even the new Halloween event, though. Instead, it was about the new desert region announced as part of the first major update for New Year's, finally giving players a peek at Retem.
While the name isn't great and somewhat reminiscent of the Pokémon Rotom, the area itself looks gorgeous and may have some fantastic exploring music to go along with it if it's the same that was played in the video. If you've played through the story so far in New Genesis, you've seen the mini reveal cutscene of the desert and already know it's what's coming next for the story.
Retem is a huge upgrade over the old desert area from PSO2 with its plain palette and dreary underground tunnels; instead, the area is much brighter and looks like it has some little oases, canyons and interesting high-tech pyramids to explore. There appears to be a lot of verticality here with mountains, metal ramps and more evidence of tech in Retem, too. In the Aelio region, there are some cylindrical structures in South Aelio and metal with flashing lights peeking through parts of cliffs. However, in the Retem trailer, we see metal archways, platforms and ramps, high-tech pyramids and more across the area. The pyramids in particular are shown a few times, signaling that they may hide some interesting secrets. The sky also has a unique appearance of rings or lights.
The ecosystem in Retem appears to be completely different from Aelio as well. While there wasn't much shown about new wildlife and enemies, we did see a handful of them. DOLLS will, of course, be in the region, although none were shown, so it's unknown if there will be new variations. What we did see were camel creatures, new dragon enemies, lamia-like enemies and a scary but fuzzy-looking yeti monster. While there was no sign of the sandworm from the story cutscene, we did get to see a new four-headed or armed DOLLS boss. It appears to have a number of ranged attacks and a few swiping ones. It's not known if this is Retem's Nex Vera, an Urgent Quest boss or just a general region boss.
The video also revealed a new hub, built inside what looks like an old piece of a crashed ship. It's much smaller than Central City and dressed up with colorful tapestries and hangings. It looks to be more of a secondary hub than a new main one. The hub is also shaped like an amphitheater, suggesting it may be where a story speech will take place. While none were shown in the video, there will be some new characters to meet in a much different culture than Central City. There was also focus on a peculiar crystal at the edge of the hub which appears to have writing on it, suggesting it could be something important. As for hopping between hubs, it should be easy enough once you grab the nearby Ryuker Device although there may be a bit more loading time than usual going between such large regions.
A handful of cocoons were spotted throughout the video, which means there will definitely be more skill points arriving alongside the region. The level cap will also raise from the current 20 to 35 which is a fairly big jump. This means there's likely to be plenty of content to complete, much higher Battle Power ratings and tons of new class skills to spend new points on. Retem will be part of a major game update around New Year's which will forward the story and add a ton of new content.
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