Prepare for a world in Chaos with Maple Story's Age of Heroes update

Maple Story , the charming free-to-play game with an alarming amount of depth and addictiveness, is getting a massive update this summer with the new Chaos campaign. Continuing the story after the events of the Big Bang and Resistance content, Chaos sees an evil greater than even the Black Mage creeping to the surface. With the first part of the Chaos update series coming next Wednesday, July 29th, it's about time to usher in the Age of Heroes. Check out what you'll find in the incoming update, from time travel to Mutant Slimes.

The Age of Heroes is the first step in a long line of content additions headed to Maple Story this summer. Here's what you can expect to see come June 29th:

• The new Gate to the Future area, with new quests and zones

• A new high level boss...from the future!

• Mutated versions of low-level creatures you might remember from back in your early leveling days—those adorable green slimes you killed at Level 1 have morphed into monstrous purple mutants

• Hero class rebalancing: restrictions for creating Dual Blade, Aran and Evan classes will be removed

• New skills and retuning for existing classes; Explorers, Cygnus and Resistance classes return with greatly upgraded main skills

Four more major updates are slated for release following Age of Heroes. In July, we'll see the dawn of the Age of Artisans, which will debut a new level-based crafting system. After that comes the Age of Battle, where players will finally get to throw down with some good old-fashioned PvP modes. Once you've traveled through the Ages, you'll need to gather your allies to take on the dreaded Ice Knight encounter.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, now's the time— Maple Story is completely free to play ! If you're having trouble running Maple Story on Windows 7, you can check out our handy troubleshooting guide on the subject.