As laid out before, the future of World of Warcraft is looking pretty bright. However, recent changes in Blizzard, the creator of World of Warcraft (WOW), could indicate something different. Whether this will be good or bad for the game, only time will tell, but it is high time we address the changes taking place in Blizzard as it could spell major implications on WOW.
What has changed at Blizzard
Finalized in Q4 of 2023, Microsoft has basically finished their acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. With acquisitions in general, there are generally huge changes that are forced upon the company getting acquired. This situation is no different here – thousands of Activision Blizzard King employees were laid off in January 2024, affecting nearly every game that Blizzard produces. For example, the unannounced survival game that Blizzard has been teasing for the past few years has been completely cancelled and the hundreds of employees working on that game have been laid off. Looking at games like Overwatch, Diablo, and other Blizzard games, there have also been sizable reductions to development teams across the board. The only game that seems to have not been touched by layoffs is WOW, but this could still change as more information comes to light.
What this means for WOW
With WOW’s development team seemingly still intact, the community consensus is that all the content promised will be delivered without any delays. In fact, the release date for the next WOW expansion, The War Within, is supposed to be moved up a few months. This is a good thing for the community and the game developers since no one is looking forward to the fated season 4 of Dragonflight, so cutting it short by moving up the next expansion’s timeline is smart business move if nothing else.
Speaking of business moves though, Microsoft’s acquisition of Blizzard has shown that underperforming games likely equate to layoffs, which results in an overall decrease in quality within any given game. It is no secret that WOW is the prized jewel of Blizzard’s game library. So much so that there are currently FOUR different versions of WOW available to play:
- Retail World of Warcraft – currently in the Dragonflight expansion (season 3 out of 4) but soon to be The War Within
- World of Warcraft Classic – featuring both hardcore and the original 2004 version of the WOW
- World of Warcraft Classic: Wrath of the Lich King – soon to be switching from Wrath of the Lich King to Cataclysm
- World of Warcraft: Season of Discovery – a take on WOW where players get to experience ideas that were scrapped before the release of WOW in 2004
With all these versions of WOW available, there are millions of players across the world paying $15 a month to play one and/or multiple of these versions, making WOW the biggest cash cow for Microsoft in their acquisition. But four versions of WOW is both a strength and a weakness for the franchise. While it is great for players to have variety, if just one of these versions shows a downtrend of players or revenue, it could mean development reductions across the entire WOW franchise.
What does all this mean though? Well, it is a great thing the WOW team has survived the Microsoft acquisition seemingly completely intact, but the first sign of weakness in any of the versions of WOW could cause that all to change. That all being said, this preserved weakness in the WOW franchise is nearly all speculation based on what happened to every other game development team at Blizzard during this Microsoft acquisitions. Only time will tell how this Microsoft acquisition will affect WOW, but for now, WOW fans can rest assured that the timeline laid out for the future of WOW is intact and possibly even expedited so that we can experience it sooner than expected.
