Despite not selling out, Blizzcon 2023 (on November 3rd and 4th) encompassed some huge announcements for the future of World of Warcraft (WOW). So big in fact that WOW players will be talking about what was announced at this Blizzcon for the next decade. All eras of WOW, including WOW Classic, WOW Wrath of the Lich King Classic, and Retail WOW, are receiving huge content updates throughout the rest of 2023 and into 2024. All these announcements, there has never been a better time in WOW’s nearly 20-year history to be a WOW player or become one. This article will go over the future updates coming to all three eras of WOW.
WOW Classic
The summer of 2023 introduced an official hardcore server for WOW Classic that brought back hundreds of thousands of players. This allowed players to have new experiences with the nostalgic touch classic WOW. Classic WOW game developers are doubling down on this with the announcement of The Season of Discovery. The Season of Discovery will allow players to play WOW like never before, with new content like that explores alternate timelines of WOW lore. Each class will also have new spells and specializations – for example, players will be able to play as a tank Warlock or a healer Mage, both of which are exclusively Damage classes on all other versions of WOW. The level cap will start off at level 25, so it is very easy for players to start a new character and get to max level content quickly, then the level cap will increase after a few months as new content is introduced. The Season of Discovery will be released on November 30th and is available with a WOW subscription.
WOW Wrath of the Lich King Classic (WotLK)
In early October, the final raid of WotLK, Ice Crown Citidal, was released. It brought back hundreds of thousands of players to what many consider the best raid in WOW history. Since it is the final raid of that expansion, naturally the next expansion that players get to re-experience would have to be announced and Blizzcon was the place to do it. Starting sometime in 2024, players will get to re-experience that Cataclysm WOW expansion. For those who played it nearly 15 years ago, you know that WOW became vastly more difficult in terms of toughness of dungeons and raids during Cataclysm compared to expansions before it. It will be interesting to see if that difficulty is still the same when put against the modern 2023 gamers.
Retail WOW
Retail WOW got by far the most announcements for it at Blizzcon out of any game in the Blizzard game library. Starting with what is already live, the final patch of Dragonflight (10.2) wraps up the story of the expansion and brings in a new zone (the Emerald Dream) and raid (Amirdrassil). It also brings a new mythic plus dungeon rotation which includes the two branches of Dawn of the Infinite, as well as six other revamped dungeons from older expansions. While this new content is very hype, the announcement that this is the last major patch of Dragonflight makes this expansion the shortest expansion in WOW history which is likely to only last 19 to 20 months (November 2022 to probably early summer 2024).
Moving onto the future of WOW updates, Blizzcon announced the next six years of the story and content coming before 2030, all of which is encompassed in the Worldsoul Saga. Within the Worldsoul Saga, Blizzard announced not one, not two, but three entirely new expansions. The first expansion and the one we learned most about is called The War Within, which is set to be released in 2024 (likely early summer). The second and third expansions are called Midnight and The Last Titan, respectively; we only know the gist of these last two expansions, but they are supposed to take the WOW story to new heights as players will take on the ultimate powers in the WOW universe, those being the Titans and the Void.
However, The War Within, we do know more about thanks to Blizzcon 2023. Since the beginning of WOW, the planet players play on, Azeroth, has been impaled with a giant sword, so large that it pierced through the core of the planet. It has largely been ignored by the story and players of the game… until now. A voice from the depths of Azeroth calls out for help and us, the players, will be compelled to answer its call, for if we do not, Azeroth as we know it could be destroyed. Players will be discovery the underground kingdoms of the Earthen people and wage war against the Ahn’Qiraj, all in the pursuit of finding out who is calling to us from the heart of Azeroth and why they need our help.
All in all, very exciting stuff is coming to Retail WOW with the Worldsoul Saga, including new mechanics and content like reputation sharing across characters, a form of gear sharing, and a new instance solo/group dungeon-type mechanic called Delves. Of course, there will also be new dungeons and raids coming with The War Within and the other expansions when they are released. Given the content cadence of Dragonflight, we can assume that content will be coming out faster in these new expansions as well. While this is all very exciting, one potential downside is that players will have to fork over at least 50 dollars more often to get access to the next content and expansions – speaking of which, The War Within is already available for pre-purchase on the battle.net client, starting at $50 for the basic pack and up to $90 dollars for the ultimate pack; this on top of the monthly subscription.
I will likely be writing more about this in the coming months and the new year as new information comes out. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on these WOW announcements.
