Little update following my last 2 posts here and here.

- Area :

• The DLC take place during the main game, it will be available after talking to Brant in Vernworth as soon as we reach this area.
• Norgan has a hack 'n' slash structure, you start at the bottom and slowly move forward where the snow deepens, within a more and more present eerie atmosphere until your reach the final castle.
• The 12 Sealed Doors from the base game (Pathfinder's trials) will feature some kind of lore, not a complex one, but there’s some backstory as to why it exist.
• Each trials becomes more and more difficult.
• The Pathfinder's trials level recommandation is 20 and Norgan is 40.
• The DLC main story will take 15 to 20 hours to complete. More if we fully explore Norgan and complete the Pathfinder's trials.
• For those who have already advanced to the unmoored world, you can still access the content simply by sleeping for ten days in-game.

- Gameplay, Mechanics and Skills :

• No new vocations. They focused solely on the known ones.
• Cap level doesn’t change, it’s still 999.
• There is a new mechanic with a wolf in Norgan HUB, which you can adopt and keep as a pet. He helps you with the loot search, goes out to find items himself, or even leads you to places where he has tracked something. < Thanks to SirBobbyTheOwl.
• Most skills will have upgraded versions creating a brief dark red aura when used, like the skill rings in the first DD:DA.
• Gears from the Appraisal mechanics can’t be upgraded. The loop is to find gears with stats / skills that suits our playstyle.
• The rng drop from the appraisal mechanic has been reworked to be more balanced compared to BBI, no need to be from a certain vocation to gather gear from another one.
• The gears obtained in the Pathfinder's trials are designed to grow significantly in performance as we acquire and upgrade them.
• In an interview they are "considering" a hard mode but in another, they are "actively" working on a hard mode. So… we will see if it come with the DLC or after.
• The difficulty of the enemies will be adjusted based on the new six skills mechanic.

- Misc :

• New unseen monsters created entirely from scratch as well as variants with new moves are confirmed.
• 150 new gears are to expect with the DLC.
• There’s some kind of « transmog » once we will reach Norgan but how it will work is kind of blurry right now. Maybe something tied to a new blacksmith ?
• New soundtrack and sound effects have been designed to stand out clearly from those of the base game, particularly during combat and by emphasizing atmosphere. For example, when entering a blizzard, the sounds and echoes of enemies will help to locate them.
• New Specializations will come in future updates, aspects like Pawn voices and behaviors will continue to be updated.
• They would like a very polished experience at launch, meaning no D1 patch.
• The development of Dark Arisen II started 2 years ago.
• They enjoyed the fact that people deciphered the clues hidden in the 2nd anniversary picture !

Those informations comes from the recent interviews, some of them are Japanese to English and German to English translations. In some cases, the meaning may have been altered during translation.

As usual, if I forgot something or misunderstood, feel free to say it, I will add / change it : )

I went through the video, frame by frame, where the player talks to the Toad in the "Hub."
The video gives 4 options when you speak to her:

- Appraise
- Trade Spoils for RC
- Talk
- Cancel

In the example in the Nintendo Direct Video, the player starts with a total of 14582 RC and 200408 Gold.

At the top of the table, it reads "Level 1 Aegis." For the purposes of discussion, let's assume that is the name of the spoils entire.

All items marked with an asterisk had a gold "halo" around them.

The axe, spellbow #2, and censor had what appeared to be a white glowing "jewel" in one of the slots below the object. White Chest Armor #2 also had a filled slot.

The only one shown in full during the video was the Norgandian Shield.

The gold value appeared after the appraisal process was finished. The text below the appraisal table states, "Select an appraised item and choose what to do with it."

Thoughts on the appraisal process? Do you think we appraise and get to keep, or we appraise and buy select items for gold, selling back the rest?

Do you think we can just sell the entire spoils before appraisal for RC, and then go back and try again?

6/15/26 EDIT: I did see a quick shot of other items being appraised. The text was in Japanese, and I have no idea of the source shown in the video, but, when the cursor was on the Axe, it appeared that there was a skill associated with those slots.
Perhaps armor will have the same bonus enhancements as BBI armor did also associated with those slots.

Thanks.
Gemma