Well, I know I am not the first nor the last, but I made it: I finished 9-4 missions and now I am finally Vanguard. And now, what does the future have for Rank missions?
I say this because as I made the new missions they were basically yet again reskinned content except two or so missions again, those two missions being a bit unfair for a soloer, but well, that isn't the point of that. What I am trying to tell is that, after having finished these Rank Missions, I am left with the same amount of info I had as someone who doesn't have easy access to Shadow Lairs and Expansion Missions.
Also, we have seen all that was in the preview of the mission mode:
From Nick>
"A lot of missions are on the way, here’s a quick list of some of the things to expect:
- Braving the Soldier’s Graveyard outside of Haven to pay respects to an unknown knight
- Facing the deadly new ‘battlepods’ that can take the form of anything from mecha knight production machines to poison fume generators
- Rescuing imprisoned knights from a gremlin prison and battling alongside them as you make your escape
- Taking on the ultimate arena in a monstrous bulwark that protects the Firestorm Citadel
- Exploring a mysterious statuary of trojans and discovering their terrible origin
- Laying siege on the hidden castle of the Crimson Order’s weapon master"
The only one exception is the "terrible origin" thing unless it is implicit that it is "lost knights". It seems clear, though. But right now, all plans seem to have been fulfilled. I am just a bit worried maybe that we aren't going to have more content in a while. Not "content", but "free" content, and one that we can all enjoy and actually advance the story.
Shadow Lair lore now it is also a bit obsolete due to the last Artifact you get from the FSC mission, where you can see that the Core actually saved Alpha Squad (as I expected), the Swarm menace seems apparent to the Spiral Order and also we already suspect there is something more than just Gremlins pulling the strings. So, also Clockworks in general have gotten obsolete.
I may be extending too much, so the question is: Where are we going now? I hope the answer isn't "to Expansion Missions with the Crimson Order clash, pony up money as we can't make a client", that is what I am most worried of.
And I fear we are a few months back again in lore/content.
- more Shadow Lair;
- rescue the being in the Core (it seems to be benign) and rejoin with Alpha Squadron;
- defeat the "Architect" (a.k.a. King Tinkinzar) with the help of the Core being;
Now that Core is cleared and King Tinkinzar is defeated. The Core being will provide SK with new technologies! (This means, higher tier equipment!) That would pave path for a lot more contents to come.
The way the plot is suggesting is that even the Core is opened and SK gets the energy to power up Skylark, chances are that some of them will stay behind and explore other mysteries of Cradle (e.g. secrets left behind by Tinkinzar, with the Swarm lurking around). This would give us more places to explore.
Interesting side quest idea. Gremlins no longer have a King, so they have to elect a new leader. SK can help them with that!
The Swarm seems to be some kind of retrovirus. I'm guessing it is either extraterrestrial, or it is a byproduct of the creation of Cradle. e.g. King Tinkinzar meant to create nano machines to clean up Cradle but these machines mutated into Swarms and started infecting everything.