Not merely content with announcing World of Warcraft’s second expansion, Blizzard made the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King available to play at Blizzcon. While the areas open to exploration are a bit restricted, we got enough of a taste of the first zone’s unique Norse flavor to reveal some of what awaits you in the Howling Fjords.

The crescent-shaped continent of Northrend will ultimately have two entry-level zones, according to Blizzard, and Howling Fjords is one of these. At the southeast edge of the continent, the zone is nearly bisected by a deep fjord that gives the zone its name. Playing as Alliance, we hopped on a ship from the Night Elf port town of Auberdine and sailed through the fjord to the settlement of Valgarde. The first impression you get of the zone is that it’s a rugged, ancient place; the steep cliffs of the fjord tower, high above the water as you navigate inside, and the hills looming over Valgarde are largely occupied by the impressive, slightly malevolent Utgarde Keep in bright, white stone. Valgarde clings to the very edge of the land, but is under constant siege from unknown foes. As soon as you step off the boat, you’re conscripted into aiding the resident forces push some of the raiders off.

The enemies, called Vrykul, you’ll find laying waste to the town are entirely new to the expansion. The new foes are huge, Viking inspired threats who are accompanied by worg hounds. The Vrykul are men, but giant men--well-muscled and well-detailed, you can see hair curling on their arms and chest as they mercilessly try to chop you down. The worgs have a passing similarity to wolves but an even more ferocious appearance, with high front shoulders and lowered heads full of teeth. You fight them alongside the guards of Valgarde, who often call to each other, speaking of world events and heroes they’ve fought alongside, lending a bit of extra flavor to the fray. Once you thin the numbers of invaders a bit, you’re sent into the surrounding pine forest to check for lost scouts.

When you find the scouts, they’re cruelly impaled on huge, awful-looking blades and scattered over the ground, still clinging to life. It would appear that the Vrykul are a pretty barbaric sort that camp in Wyrmkill Village on the very outskirts of Valgarde, and with a bit of further investigation, you learn that they’re lead by a fellow called Ingvar the Plunderer, who’s well ensconced in the halls of Utgarde Keep.

New instances like Utgarde Keep will provide the fattest of loot.

Utgarde Keep is a five-man instance and one of the first in this new expansion, so we were eager to peek inside and see what dangers would await. The keep itself has the look of an old Viking longhall, with huge dark beams of smoke-weathered wood joined with stone in a way that somehow made us thirsty for mead. The initial pulls in the instance were small pulls of 2 or 3 Vrykuls each leading into the first chamber, which was dominated by a giant furnace spewing flames against the walls. The flame effects for the long columns of flowing fire were new and looked good, but they were also totally impassible until we started killing enemies in the room, which caused the flames to cease burning so we could sneak by.