Blizzard is beckoning the children of Azeroth home. The War Within is designed to test the idea that a legion of lapsed players are still out there, willing to answer that call. "We recognize that people might not play for an expansion. That people get very busy with work or with life, and then they go away for a while," says associate design director Maria Hamilton. "But they often want to come back; their friends and their community are here, or maybe there's a certain nostalgia value. And of course we would love them to, because this is a great time to come back to World of Warcraft."
The opening chapter of the Worldsoul Saga is your chance to descend into the depths of Azeroth, far from the esoteric story arcs which plagued the awkward teenage years of an adventure that's now celebrating its 20th anniversary. It's an opportunity to journey alongside old companions into vast subterranean worlds, battling old foes you may barely remember. A renewed focus on solo play has paved the way for a more cinematic campaign, and ensured that there's plenty worth returning for – even if your Battle Net friends list reads like an extended missing person's report.
It's been five or so years since I last fed my free time into the most compelling distraction-machine that the video game industry has ever produced. But after spending six hours with the upcoming World of Warcraft: The War Within alpha I can already feel myself being drawn back into the grind. There's an undeniable quality to the Isle of Dorn, the starting area which acts as an introduction to the land of Khaz Algar; Delves feel appropriately torqued, regardless of whether you're traveling alone or as part of a group; and Hero Talents breathe new life into familiar combat routines. Against my better judgment, I'm coming home. "I'm glad to hear it," laughs game director Ion Hazzikostas, "because we really do believe that this is an excellent point of return for folks who haven't played WoW in a tremendously long time."
A returning hero
I've missed two expansion cycles – Shadowlands and Dragonflight – since I last maintained an active subscription, and a lot has changed in World of Warcraft since Battle for Azeroth. The raft of alterations are too extensive to grasp. I'm certain that my character is standing exactly where I left them back in 2019, but they are no longer level 120 – instead I've been squished down to level 50. The profession system has been revamped, leveling has been overhauled, there's awkward momentum-based flying, new zones, new dungeons, new everything everywhere. It's too much too fast. Coming into WoW for the first time now is daunting, but for returning players it can feel actively hostile.
I suppose that's to be expected in a live-service adventure that's been running for two decades. Regardless, Blizzard is taking steps to ease the burden for players coming in for the beginning of the Wouldsoul Saga – including the decision to kickstart new adventures from the startpoint of the 2022 expansion. "We're starting a new epic journey with The War Within, but the new player experience is going to begin with Dragonflight. It's a pretty good experience – one of the best we've had in recent memory," says Holly Longdale, vice president for World of Warcraft. "It highlights the best of World of Warcraft."
Admittedly, I haven't played Dragonflight yet, but critical consensus suggests that it's the best World of Warcraft expansion in years. When The War Within launches this fall, I plan on taking a new character through it. Off I'll go from Exile's Reach and into the Dragon Isles to get properly reacquainted with the core game experience, leveling through to 70 to access the new content strewn across (and beneath) the expansive Khaz Algar region – which sits off the western shores of Pandaria. That's the plan, anyway; I may still decide to pre-order the Epic Edition of the War Within to get an Enhanced Level 70 Character Boost and just jump headfirst into the battle against remerging Nerubians forces.
World of Warcraft vice president says "the dream remains" to bring the MMO to Xbox in the future, even if there's "no room for that conversation" until after the War Within launches.
That's basically what happened when I sat down with The War Within alpha. In an effort to give me as much time with the expansion as possible, Blizzard set me up with a brand new level 70 character and then let me loose in the Isle of Dorn. And by 'let me loose', I do of course mean studio representatives watched me for 30 minutes as I tried to remember how to spec my Fire Mage (a class I've played for thousands of hours over a 15 year span of time) and how to properly set up my action bars. It took an embarrassingly long time to remember that there was a shortcut to Mount that didn't require manually opening the collectibles window. These are the peculiarities you'll discover if you do decide to return to World of Warcraft – everything is vaguely foreign and strangely familiar.
From there, it didn't take long for muscle memory to kick in. While a great many of the core systems may have changed or otherwise evolved over the years the fundamentals of play remain the same. I was falling into familiar rhythms: generating Heating Up and Hot Streak from critical strikes with Fireball and Fire Blast, making my next Pyroblast strike an instant cast, all while maximizing my DPS output through a mastery over Ignite. Listen, I'm not saying that I was Raid ready by the time I was being kicked off of the War Within alpha servers (and I'm sure if you tracked down any of my old Guild they'd say that I never was) but I was effectively surviving as a stranger in a strange land. I imagine you'll feel the same way if you return to WoW with a Class you have fond memories of playing in the past.
New ways to play
The biggest learning curve isn't resigned to returning players, but rather arrives for all in the form of a new evergreen feature called Hero Talents. This is an extension of the core Talent system, allowing you to further specialize your chosen class fantasy within a self-contained tree, with 10 Hero Talent points earned on the leveling journey to the new level cap of 80. I invested points through the 'Sunfury' tree which imbued my Fire Mage with devastating incarnations – Combustion took on new prominence in my combat cycles, with it triggering the summon of an Arcane Phoenix into battle to cast random Arcane and Fire spells at the cost of regenerating Spellfire Spheres.
While this enhanced Talent system is by no means as in-depth or flexible as the one which existed in World of Warcraft prior to the controversial Mists of Pandaria shakeup in 2012 (if you can remember that far back) it is a fun addition, and helps Blizzard navigate a tricky position. "Hero talents are an example of us trying to strike a balance between the want to add some flavor and depth, no matter what class you play, and us not wanting to add overwhelming combinatorial complexity," says Hazzikostas.
"That's a lesson we learned from the first iteration of the Talent system 15 years ago. When you take a system like that and just keep adding 10 points onto it, and you let people freely choose among them, it isn't long before it starts to feel overwhelming – it's almost telling people who haven't played the game in a very long time that you're probably coming back too late. We want to make sure WoW is never doing that," he continues. "We're not looking to just design a game for the same dwindling core over time. For WoW to be healthy, it needs fresh blood, and it needs to appeal to folks who haven't played in a while but want to see what it's about today. If we were just going increasingly deep and complex, it's almost an inevitability that it would become unapproachable."
Approachability is a key driving force behind many of the best additions arriving in The War Within. Chief among them are Delves, which are these fun little descents into treasure vaults which are scattered all across the Isle of Dorn. These little gauntlets have you defeating powerful bosses and chasing great loot, and the best part is that they can be enjoyed with a party of four or completely solo – with a handy NPC companion as your guide, one who can be assigned healer or DPS responsibilities.
"Part of our ethos is that we're 20 years on now, but how do we set ourselves up for the next 20 years?" says Longdale. "So there's some amount of modernizing going on. Not just our technology, but it's also recognizing that people value their time differently than they did in 2004. You know, I was somehow able to play 10 hours a day back then and I can't do that anymore. So we've tried to find answers for that with things like Delves and Warbands."
Answer the call
While I wasn't able to sample this in the earliest stages of the War Within alpha – which will expand, zone-by-zone, over time as Blizzard welcomes feedback from the community – something I am excited to try are dungeons which can be played solo alongside follower NPCs. This, I'm told, is an expansion of an effort introduced in Dragonflight, and it has led the development team to push for a more cinematic and dynamic campaign in the new expansion. "We can now have the campaign of a zone send you through dungeons in a way that we simply wouldn't have done in the past, because we know that there are some players who don't feel comfortable doing dungeons," says Hazzikostas.
"Dungeons have so often been these important places, but we've had to consciously segment them off, and make them into little offshoots of the main story," he continues. "But now, if you can handle solo quests, you can also handle these dungeons with follower NPC companions – think of them, in essence, as really epic solo quests. So now, where it makes sense, we can have the main story go right through those places, and have major antagonists and events happen in ways that all players can experience." This is a big deal for me. If I do return to World of Warcraft for The War Within this fall, I'll be doing so with the knowledge that my friends and Guild mates have long since left the game behind – playing solo is going to be my primary point of experience with WoW moving forward.
I'll also be doing it as a player entering his mid-30s, who no longer has the time or energy to play with consistency over long stretches of time. Coming back to the MMO, safe in the knowledge that my muscle memory will guide me through the awkward phase of relearning how to play, and with the understanding that I'll have access to the best content – spread across utterly dazzling new zones and monstrously consequential storylines – no matter my party composition, is a real boost. World of Warcraft is coming up on 20 years of ceaseless activity and 10 massive expansions, and yet it has never felt more resurgent. I'll be answering the call to return home to Azeroth this fall – but will you?
World of Warcraft: The War Within is set to launch later this year. While you wait, why not check out the best MMOs to play in 2024.
