The Secret World's devblog has just released a ton of details (and some screenshots) on the The Secret World's upcoming first Raid, the Manhattan Exclusion Zone.

Detailing the raid is Graeme Lennon, the designer behind Hell Fallen and the Facility, who says that this raid was conceptualized during pre-production of The Secret World as a part of a larger story arc.

Where The Secret World has generally depicted horrible, nightmarish creatures surfacing around the dark corners of the globe, these threats are going to start erupting out of the greatest cities around the world: first an invasion in New York;  later Tokyo, which is being produced for a future raid. These raids will take The Secret World into a new direction with its narrative, a place where it's harder to deny the secret dangers the world is facing.

As a result of being the The Secret World's first Raid, and central to the story, the difficulty is being aimed around Tier-1 level Nightmares. Being that it's a 10-player instance, teamplay is encouraged and promises to be most rewarding.

And speaking of rewards, players will personally receive special rewards for the first time they complete the Raid, followed by repeatable rewards for every time after that. Lennon also promises something extra special for the loot the final boss drops, but remains coy as to what it is.

There will be a 32 hour cooldown on accessing the raid, but only upon defeating the Final Boss, not attempting to defeat him. Again, Lennon encourages teamwork, and promises they've taken a lot of time in finding ways to challenge and reward different players no matter their class.

For more information, check out the The Secret World blog post here, and as always, stay tuned for more info at Dualshockers.