Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Wizards of the Coast, and Turbine have announced the first expansion pack coming to the free-to-play massively multiplayer online roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons Online. The expansion is called Menace of the Underdark and will launch in Summer 2012. Not only that, but DDO is also launching Update 13 at the end of February, which will bring tons of fun stuff to the game.

The best part of this announcement is that Menace of the Underdark will be the first time that DDO players will be able to venture in to the beloved Forgotten Realms, which, in all honesty, is D&D's most imaginative and renowned setting. Along with getting the experience to explore the Forgotten Realms, Menace of the Underdark will also introduce a brand new class to the game, the Druid, as well as increase the level cap all the way to 25.

“2011 was a year of growth for Dungeons & Dragons Online as we celebrated our fifth anniversary and completed a successful launch of the game in Europe,” said Fernando Paiz, Executive Producer of Dungeons & Dragons Online.  “2012 is going to be our biggest year yet with a wealth of new content throughout the year including the launch of our first expansion pack.  We are very excited to expand into the Forgotten Realms setting with a whole new storyline, level cap increase and the new Druid class!” 

When the Menace of the Underdark is unleashed on D&D players you'll arrive in the village of Eveningstar and be able to adventure your way through the King's Forest wilderness area where members of the Cormyr nation must until to face all of the new threat to the Forgotten Realms.  Along the way you'll come face to face with the Underdark Drow and their Queen and goddess Lolth. Eventually you'll be able to infiltrate their stronghold of Shindrylyrn and defeat her minions.

Additionally, the expansion will let players assume the role of the classic D&D shape-shifting Druid. This class will not only get a companion pet of their own, but it will allow players to transform in to powerful animal forms in order to take on everything the Underdark has to throw at them.

While you're waiting for Menace of the Underdark to hit DDO Online, Update 13 should keep you pretty busy. The update will add a new free adventure pack to the game, including a group of instances which starts off a new storyline.

The update will also introduce the cosmetic pet system (!) which is something longtime players have been asking for for, well, a long time! Initially there will only be a few pets but there will be more added throughout the year and eventually players will be able to amass a whole stable of pets.

If all of this sounds good to you then you should definitely go and download Dungeons & Dragons online right now. It's absolutely free to download and the game already has tons of great content for you to play through while you wait on The Menace of the Underdark expansion to come out. What are you waiting for?

If you're already a DDO Online player what do you think of this new expansion? Do the upcoming features sound like something you're interested in? Let us know in the comments section.