Phantasy Star Online 2 is about to celebrate the first anniversary of its Japanese release and on July the 17th it's going to receive a large content expansion simply named "Episode 2".

The new expansion will include a new chapter of the main storyline and a whole lot of new content, starting with a new race named "Dehuman". Dehumans are an aggressive race with odd eyes (players will be able to select the colors separately) and horns (one for males, two for females). They will also have a much wider range of skin colors than normal humans. While it'll be necessary to create a new character to play one (no race change option will be provided), at the release of the expansion players will get the option to create two new characters even if they reached their character slot limit.

A new class named Braver will also be included. Bravers will use swords for melee and a new weapon called Barrett Bow for ranged combat. The Braver will be available at character creation and will focus on action combat and ease of operation at the same time, making it an ideal choice for newcomers. The Barrett Bow's peculiarity is that it's based on charged attacks and on shots. 

Content-wise, the new expansion will bring a completely new planet named Uopal. It's surface is almost completely covered by oceans, and even the sky is made by a thin layer of water that envelops the planet's atmosphere completely like a membrane, creating beautiful visual effects and huge waterfalls.

Together with  the new planet will come a new "Coastline" battlefield. Its looks are pretty self-explanatory and it will feature a day/night cycle and variable weather conditions. The main enemy to be found in this kind of field is called "Sea King", and will have variable attack patterns depending on the time of the day. Two sea king bosses will also be introduced, named Orgbran and Val Rodos.

The expansion will also be distributed in a new retail box named Phantasy Star Online 2 Volume 2 Premium Package that will come with two DVD with the game, A Mini CD with the sountrack and an item code that will unlock the costumes of Phantasy Star Universe heroes Ethan Waber and Karen Erra and a few other bonuses. The item codes will be available for the PS Vita as well.

It has to be noted that this is only the first phase of the release of the new expansion. The second phase will hit the Japanese servers in October and will include a raise of the level cap to 65 and the "Super Hard" difficulty. A third phase will be published in December.

Below you can see a gallery with the key art, the box art of the premium package, and screenshots of the new content and bonus items. Now, if only Sega West would wake up and let us play this game in a language we can all understand like they promised a year ago and (so far) didn't deliver... Wouldn't that be great?