20 years.
20 goddamn years is how long I’ve been playing World of Warcraft. It’s actually even longer than that as I had the great fortune of playing in the closed beta. My feeble dial up (YES DIAL UP) connection unable to keep up with the updates and so I went to my then boss of the home service IT shop I was a part of and begged him to download and burn updates to a CD for me so I could continue playing. There’s a CD around here somewhere labelled “WoW Update, listen to the gods of study though!” as he knew just how much time that game would be taking away from me. He was right of course, but I don’t think he foresaw that I’d be here, 2 decades on, still giving away my time to this game.5
Given my recent experience with Destiny 2 I was in a mind to not go back this time as I’d become somewhat comfortable with the idea of finality for things I’d spent a long time doing. Then Thor from PirateSoftware had to say that he was going to play it and was looking forward to the story…goddamnit. Then that part of my brain, the one that’s still anchored in a past from long ago, triggered and wanted me to get the collector’s edition. Of course since WoW isn’t as much of a hot ticket item anymore I was able to source one without issue which, if I’m honest, I’m a little upset with myself about. But, potentially, that purchase might serve as a good capstone to my WoW career, the gold gryffon statue my potential retirement gift to myself.
Azeroth is hurting and it is reaching out to all it can through visions that have been called the Radiant Song. Knowing that both the horde and alliance need their leaders Thrall tracks down Anduin who had been in self imposed exile since the events of Shadowlands. Once convinced that he still had more to give even without the light Anduin helps Thrall and Jaina find Magni Bronzebeard who’d previously been able to commune directly with Azeroth herself. After being injured in an attempt to speak to her once again the crew takes Magni to Dalaran and, upon his waking, informs them that the subterranean continent of Khaz Algar has dark forces at work there. Dalaran then preps to travel to this new land in hopes of once again saving the world from ruin.
The core of WoW never changes, only the dressing on the windows. As such pretty much everything is the same as it always was save for the handful of new innovations that have been brought to the table for this expansion. Along with the usual level cap bump you’ll also have another set of talents to unlock as you reach max level, adding a bit of diversity to your levelling experience. Skyriding is unlocked right from the get go, the new areas and levels now designed around the fact that you’ll be zipping around at breakneck speed between quests. Delves are mini-dungeons where you’ll be joined by a NPC companion, one who can level up and fill in roles for you. The Dungeon systems have also been reworked to include this mechanic, allowing you to have a NPC lead you through a new dungeon. The Warbands feature is now account wide, meaning you’ll only ever have to do those major grinds once. All in all, it’s more WoW and likely everything that long time players would ever want from an expansion.
Since I wasn’t playing pre-patch I didn’t manage to get in on the events that were running before then, meaning the character I wanted to take along for the journey (my paladin) wasn’t able to jump right in. So this was the first time I’ve used a level booster and, for what it’s worth, I liked the fact I could do that if I wished. I mean sure, if this was the only game I’d be playing for a few months I would’ve just done the levelling in Dragonflight since I have that expansion too, but being able to breathe new life into an old character was certainly worth the cost of admission (free with the collector’s edition in this case). It did take a while to make sure I had everything sorted though, mostly inventory and item stuff that just required a lot of sorting. Other than that, it was seamless.
Not keen on repeating my mistakes of levelling in protection in past expansions I went retribution for my paladin this time around. Whilst it was a more interactive and enjoyable experience it, like all MMORPGs, does become a bit repetitive after a little while. To be sure Blizzard has done a good job of ensuring we don’t go back to the one button macro press days again, giving you a lot more to do in any one encounter, but it doesn’t take long for you to get your rhythm and then just do that on repeat. Should you have a flock of friends by your side that isn’t a bad thing at all but, unfortunately, I seem to be the last one standing among my friends who dares to go back to WoW time and time again.
I did like the new delve and dungeon systems as it made it really approachable. There were a couple times where I joined a party where it was clear none of us had done it before and the NPC guide made sure we didn’t spend ages going in circles trying to figure out where we needed to go next. The delves themselves are pretty fun too, usually throwing in a couple of different mechanics that are solo friendly. I’m sure there’s some wonderfully broken builds that leverage specific NPC builds for the higher tiered delves but I didn’t find myself needing to track any of those down to get them completed.
But really what I came back for was the story and I have…mixed opinions on it.
SPOILERS BELOW
The opening cinematic does a fantastic job of setting the stakes, not just for the world itself but also for one of my favourite characters in WoW: Anduin Wrynn. Whilst his story echoes that of Arthas he was poised for a much better redemption arc in this expansion and, whilst he got that to some effect, I still feel a little bit disappointed that he didn’t get more attention. I mean sure, I get it, this is the supposedly the beginning of a trilogy arc and so we can be resolving everything right off the bat, but the opening cinematic sure made it feel like that.
Instead we have a handful of loosely coupled stories that all take place within Khaz Algar which has been completely separate from the greater world of Azeroth for…well all of the events that have preceded it apparently. Now I get that this is likely more posturing in order to setup the world’s next big bad, something the last few expansions have struggled with, but given the rather tenuous connections everything has to the previous WoW lore I found myself just not really caring. There were some great moments of course, like Magni’s redemption and Anduin’s realisations about the light, but they were too far apart to carry the expansion along.
Maybe this is another lesson in expectation management on my part. The cinematic tickled all the right parts of my WoW lore fandom and I figured I was in for a story that was, effectively, 20 years in the making. It wasn’t that, at all, and perhaps it doesn’t need to be. WoW is no longer the same game I fell in love with all those years ago and maybe I don’t need to keep experiencing the stories of Warcraft in the same way again.
SPOILERS OVER
World of Warcraft: The War Within is then more of the same which, depending on who you are, will be exactly what you want or just yet more evidence that it can never change. The new additions are nice, the levelling experience as slick as it ever was and the overall quality of life playing this game continues to improve. However, the thing that baited me back into playing, failed to deliver. I appreciate the dedication to making a saga out of the story but that likely means we’ll be waiting another 4 years before we see the end of this journey we just began. Does that mean much in a game that’s been running 5 times longer than that? Probably not, but for me, the grizzled veteran who’s still around after all that time, I’m left questioning whether or not I’ll be around to see that. Or if it will even be what I want to see anymore.
Really, I have no idea what I feel about this anymore. I’m just confused.
Rating: 7.75/10
World of Warcraft: The War Within is available on PC right now for $74.95. Total play time was approximately 15 hours, finishing the campaign and reaching level 80.
