What you need to know
- World of Warcraft is a 20-year-old MMO from Blizzard entertainment, and is about to get a brand new expansion called The War Within.
- To celebrate, another Blizzard title, Diablo 4, has grabbed some Warcraft-style skins as part of its Season 5 Infernal Hordes patch.
- The skins offer a glimpse at what WoW might look like with a more modern engine, showcasing Xavius, Varian Wrynn, Xal'atath, Sylvanas, Kael'thas, and even Warcraft's infamous sparkly Celestial horse.
Last year, Microsoft finalized its acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, giving it control of mega franchises like Candy Crush, Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft. Indeed, the Blizzard acquisition is among the most exciting, as we could see classic franchises like StarCraft return from dormancy.
Blizzard has been on a roll in recent years. Overwatch 2 is ticking over well and is exploring bringing back 6v6 gameplay, Diablo 4 just got a new season, Infernal Hordes, and so far it seems really awesome. World of Warcraft is also set to get a new expansion called The War Within, kicking off a new story saga led by returning franchise architect Chris Metzen.
World of Warcraft has entered its 20th year in operation, and still sports the same engine. The engine has had a ton of new graphics improvements, but still is heavily "stylized" in essence. Many areas in World of Warcraft haven't received visual improvements, however, including old cities like Ironforge and the Undercity. It has led many people to request enhancements to the old world, and some of WoW's upcoming expansions such as Midnight and The Last Titan might offer graphics passes on some of these older zones. Some have dared to wonder even further. There's plenty of Unreal Engine Warcraft fan art on YouTube, for example, such as this amazing Ironforge render. But what if Blizzard itself reimagined WoW in a modern engine?
The latest Diablo 4 season "Infernal Hordes" has added a range of new skins to the shop, and some of them have a distinctly Warcrafty theme.
There's a Kael'thas skin for sorcerers. Kael'thas was the heir to the Blood elven throne, until he threw his lot in with Illidan and later the Burning Legion, becoming a notorious villain. There's also a Druid skin based on Xavius, the evil elven traitor who also sold his soul for demonic power (sensing a pattern here...). There's also a necromancer skin based on Xal'atath, the new central antagonist of the upcoming Warcraft Worldsoul saga. There's a skin for famed Banshee Queen Sylvanas, for rogue archers. Departing from elves a bit, we also have a Barbarian skin based on Varian Wrynn, who was turned into a pile of ash by Gul'dan during the Legion expansion (RIP). Finally, there's a mount skin based on Blizzard's notorious Celestial Steed. This horse mount was the first in-app skin Blizzard offered on Warcraft's microtransaction store. A former StarCraft developer noted that the skin, while derided by core fans, actually outsold an entire StarCraft II expansion, perhaps further encouraging Blizzard to go down the microtransaction.
The skins each cost 2800 platinum, which costs around $25 depending on your region and the current sales events going on. Right now, Blizzard is offering 300 platinum on top of a 2500 purchase, which matches how much the skins generally cost. They come with weapon visuals and so on, too.
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Sure, they are pretty steep to buy. But, did you know you can convert Microsoft Rewards points for using Bing into Diablo IV Platinum? Now you do. You can also buy the Diablo 4 battle passes too. Head over to Microsoft Rewards' redemption page to spend them, and you can switch your search engine on mobile and Chrome to Bing to start earning.
It would be awesome to see World of Warcraft get a true next-gen visual makeover, but it would also make the game astronomically more expensive to build. The game's more "simplistic" stylized visuals are at least potentially cheaper to build at scale, over something more photorealistic. World of Warcraft patches and expansions come with veritable mountains of content, in part owing to the size of the team making the game, but also the maturity of the tools and its engine. Moving WoW to a more complex engine probably wouldn't do the game's content release schedule any favors, but it's fun to dream.
RELATED: World of Warcraft: The War Within's story overview
Either way, WoW has some of the best pre-rendered cinematics in the entire industry, with both The War Within's intro movie and the recent Nerubian faction profile cinematic building hype for the expansion's launch on August 22, 2024.
You can also grab Diablo IV right now as part of Xbox Game Pass.
