Attention villains: the initial details have been released regarding the first free content update for City of Villains.

Issue #7: Destiny Manifest (so numbered as it comes after six previous issues for City of Heroes) will bring your ultimate destiny to fruition, raising the Threat Level to 50 for all villains, and allowing you to take Patrons for incredible new abilities - plus much more.

Read all about Issue #7 in our Game Guide section.

Over at Boomtown, Jakob Paulsen has been asking Jack ‘Statesman’ Emmert, Creative Director of Cryptic Studios and Lead Designer of both City of Heroes and City of Villains, about what the future holds. Click here to read the interview.

As part of a year-end review at Eurogamer of all games, across all platforms, City of Villains busted into the Top 10 with high praise - after receiving a 9/10 review earlier this year, naturally.

Jim Rossignol summed up the Arachnos experience by saying City of Villains is “funny, smart, beautiful and remarkably compulsive”, and Kieron Gillen, reviewer for City of Villains, had this to say in his defence:

...we all love Cryptic’s City games with a slightly scary passionate intensity. You start making a list of its positive qualities, and you end up with a list of where almost everyone else is going wrong with the MMO in 2005.

Perhaps Eurogamer will be spared Lord Recluse’s wrath in 2006.

In a transparent attempt to curry favour with Lord Recluse, MMORPG.com has given City of Villains an award… a Game of the Year award, no less.

In summing up their reasoning, MMORPG.com’s staff singled out the incredible base building features of City of Villains for high praise - but that wasn’t all that ensured our triumph:

Throw in the previously mentioned PvP additions, in-depth character creation, the villainous theme and rich world Cryptic Studios has developed and you have yourself an extremely fun product that delivered on its promises.

In addition Cryptic Studios, the power behind Arachnos, was honoured as Company of the Year for 2005, with the continual stream of game content Cryptic produces gaining high praise:

Unlike most companies, Cryptic has never done a retail expansion. Instead they release “Issues”, which are smaller, free-expansions. Since launch in April of 2004, they had released six new issues of the game, with issues three, four, five and six coming out in 2005.

That policy will continue into 2006, with more Issues planned. Stay loyal to City of Villains for more villainy!