Almost two months ago, I posted about the future of World of Warcraft. It detailed the current state of WOW and what it could look like going into the future. To many fans’ surprise, recent updates to the game have made the game even more diverse and replayable than ever before. Let’s jump into what’s new and why it is so interesting.

In my prior post, I explained that WOW had four different versions of itself on the market:

  1. Retail WOW (Dragonflight expansion)
  2. Classic WOW (mainly played as hardcore, set in the 2004 version of the WOW)
  3. Wrath of the Lich King WOW (soon to be Cataclysm, takes players back to old expansions as they originally were)
  4. Season of Discovery WOW (a re-imagined WOW experience that adds in scrapped ideas that never made it into any of the expansions)

Even though they do require different installations, all four of these versions of WOW come with the $15 a month WOW subscription. Well, there is currently a fifth version and soon, there will even be a sixth version of WOW – both of which will be available with the basic $15 monthly subscription.

Patch 10.2.6

Released on March 19th, 2024, Patch 10.2.6 was a first for WOW. The developers have been transparent about what was coming, but this patch was kept very secret until its release. Surprisingly, this patch brought WOW into an entirely new game genre – Battle Royale. World of Warcraft Plunderstorm is the first game mode of its kind for both the MMO and Battle Royale genres. It combines the iconic graphics, movement, and button mashing of an MMO and combines it with the fast-paced, team-based looter, and player verse player aspects of a Battle Royale.

Plunderstorm was well received as it came within the retail WOW install and it filled in the content drought the retail is currently experiencing. The objective of the game is just like any other Battle Royale (think Fortnite or Apex Legends): fly into a loot-packed arena with 60 players; loot around the arena gain experience, items, abilities, and more; and fight other players as the storm moves in and survive until you are the last player standing. It can be played as a solo player or with up to two other players. Despite many players disliking retail WOW PVP, Plunderstorm feels so much different from traditional WOW PVP that it is considered a success to most players.

Although it is stand-alone game mode, Plunderstorm does offer rewards for retail WOW through a new 40 renown level reputation – this provides new mounts, transmogs, achievements, and more to retail accounts. It is a limited-time game mode though, so these rewards will not be available forever.

Patch 10.2.7

This patch is similar to patch 10.2.6 because it brings an entirely new version of WOW to fans. Patch 10.2.7 introduces timerunning Mists of Pandaria to retail. In the same vein as the ongoing timewalking events every few weeks in retail WOW, players will get to revisit the Mists of Pandaria expansion but with current class tuning, abilities, aesthetics.

As the name states (timerunning), players will be truly sprinting through this content. Starting at level 1 and going to 70, players will be able to do all the original quests, raids, dungeons, and other content from Mists of Pandaria (MOP), but at a very fast pace. Because MOP was a fan favorite expansion, introducing the Monk class and mythic raiding, but also a very long, drawn out expansion, timerunning could be the perfect pace to re-experience it.

While timerunning MOP is still in beta and won’t come out for another couple months, the gearing system is the foundation of this fast-paced experience. As more of the beta is played, more will figure out about this new content. One thing is certain though, this should be a good supplemental content to the Dragonflight fated season 4 (patch 10.3.0) that comes out in April 2024.

Patch 10.3.0

Despite the break in patch chronological ordering, this patch (10.3.0) will come out before the patch 10.2.7 discussed above. Patch 10.3.0 is going to be one of the last updates to the Dragonflight expansion. Almost nothing new will be added to the game in this patch; only a new PVP season, new mythic plus season, and fated raids will be added in this patch – all of which fall under Dragonflight season 4.

 The dungeon rotation for mythic plus will be all the original Dragonflight dungeons, which were present in seasons 1 and 2. The raids will be the same ones from season 1, 2, and 3; which one will provide relevant gear will rotate on a weekly basis. PVP will reset the previous season’s ranks. Outside of some small class tuning changes, effectively nothing new will come in patch 10.3.0. All that being said, the new season always provides players with new opportunities to push higher levels of content. There will be Plunderstorm and Timerunning MOP to supplement the potential content drought that could be a result of season 4 of Dragonflight.