Issue 12: Midnight Hour has arrived on the live servers and is now open! Immerse yourself in the new Midnight Squad storyline with a host of new missions, and experience Roman-style zone environments unlike anything you’ve seen in Paragon City™ or the Rogue Isles™.

For Villains, we introduce the all-new Villain Epic Archetypes: the Soldiers of Arachnos. Powerset Proliferation brings new powerset choices for all archetypes, and the list of overall gameplay and Quality of Life improvements is, well, lengthy! To see the full list of new features, updates and other changes in Issue 12: Midnight Hour, make sure to check out the patch notes.

In this in depth look at the creation of the new zone Cimerora, Ken Morse takes us behind the scenes and through the seven steps that brought Cimerora from concept to completion.

Local radio stations from the Big City network are now offering free trials to City of Heroes and City of Villains. This is the biggest ever free trial offer for the UK, so it has never been easier to get started on a career as a Hero in Paragon City or a Villain on the Rogue Isles!

Read on to find out how to get yours, or one for a friend…

The Midnight Squad is featured heavily in the next free expansion coming to City of Heroes and City of Villains - Issue 12: Midnight Hour. Make sure you know their history and goals before Issue 12 launches by watching the latest teaser trailer.

After much anticipation, the latest free expansion for City of Heroes / Villains is now entering its final testing phase. Issue 12: Midnight Hour Open Beta started this Tuesday on the Training Room and you can try it now! Please follow the instructions in this thread on how to download and play on the test server.

Also if during your testing you encounter bugs, please use the /bug command in-game to report them. Finally, you are welcome to give your feedback about the beta on our forums.

The full patch notes are available here

Enjoy!

The Student Zone is currently running a 2-weeks free trial for City of Heroes / Villains starting today! Please visit this page to get started on your journey to Paragon City or the Rogue Isles.

City of Heroes Lead Writer Joe Morrissey has put together a developer diary telling us about the Midnight Squad, a group of heroes that has appeared in past lore. The Midnight Squad makes their first appearance in Issue 12. Here’s a brief clip:

“So, why the Midnight Hour?”

The Midnight Squad takes the main focus of this issue. They’ve got some of the coolest history, yet hardly any of it has been opened up to the players. I choose the Midnight Squad because they were seriously crippled by the invasion and therefore were extremely motivated to take action against the Rikti. We did a lot with the Rikti story for Issue 10, but it was only through the single lens of the Vanguard. Now we see a second perspective, through the eyes of those hardest hit from the invasion, the Midnighters.

Click here to read the full article.