World of Warcraft, the long-running MMO by Blizzard Entertainment, has had its ups and downs in its twenty years of existence. From its highs of Wrath of the Lich King and Mists of Pandaria to the lows of Warlords of Draenor and Shadowlands, champions of Azeroth and their players have been through many journeys. As the game dawns on its twentieth anniversary, its latest adventure, The War Within, kicking off the Worldsoul Saga, feels like its most ambitious adventure yet.
We were invited to check out the Alpha for The War Within to try out the first zone, Isle of Dorn, and some new features coming later this year. After completing the first zone, it feels very clear that World of Warcraft is entering a new era that has been coming for a long time.
Get BWT in your inbox!
Get BWT in your inbox!
From a story perspective, the Isle of Dorn’s story is almost like an introduction in a way that many past expansions of first zones haven’t felt in quite some time. It’s almost reminiscent of Mists of Pandaria’s Jade Forest zone. It’s mysterious but drops you right into the action. The Alpha didn’t have the opening scenario for play, but its fallout spoke for itself.
Looking around at the crash site made the immediate threat personal. Dalaran is in ruins, and a mix of the warriors of Azeroth plus Earthen forces being pushed to the brink by the Nerubians threw my warrior right into action. Yet, like many aspects of this zone’s story, everything felt like it was just scratching the surface as we prepared to dive into the depths of what was to come.
Even with no cutscenes implemented yet or mid-zone scenarios available, the story in The War Within, told through questing, was personal through character sacrifices as to why everyone there was helping out. The stakes of this new threat led by Xal’atath show how dangerous they are without being a larger-than-life crisis that we have gotten used to up to this point.
It is perfect for an expansion that is all about many characters searching within themselves as they fight internal demons to become better people. Even then, this whole zone feels different in its ultimate delivery. While it didn’t feel long, the story told was satisfying. And like the overall theme of this expansion, we have only just begun with much more story to come as the expansion progresses.
Now let’s talk about Delves, the new PvE system introduced in this expansion. Delves were pitched as an alternative to running dungeons and raids for end-game loot. In other words, it’s the new third pillar of content for PvE players. Instead of requiring five or ten to thirty players, this content is soloable, with the option to run it with more players and at higher difficulties as you progress. After trying out a couple…Delves rock.
The scenarios are unique, and most importantly, the tech revolves around Delves’ work. The idea of Delves is there are little mystical entrances found throughout each zone that lead to pocket-sized adventures. Walking up to a mist door will start the adventure without any queues or loading screens. And yeah. That’s exactly what they do. It’s hard to wow you, the reader, by just saying this, but it is shocking how cool walking up to and starting a Delve is the first couple of times. Plus, it expands on the follower dungeons with an ally joining you for assistance.
In this first season, at the start of the expansion, Brann Bronzebeard follows you and is a major help in more ways than expected. He levels up as you do more Delves and covers a role you may need on your journey. He can deal damage or heal, with other options opening up as the expansion progresses.
Even as a fury warrior with a fair bit of self-healing available in its kit, Brann was still a major help in the end boss fights. Plus, he mines, farms herbs, and collects loot that may be missing. He does it all and covers any blanks that you may have in your kit! That foresight is so welcomed in a new feature like this.
Plus, the scenarios in the delves were extremely unique and brought their fun challenges. One delve involved the kobolds, a classic World of Warcraft enemy known for candles on their heads. This Delves required me to carry a candle on my head because it was so dark. If I lost it or it ran out of wax, everything around me evaporated into the darkness. Enemies could still hit me, and I could walk right by loot without even realizing any of it was there. As some of the first delves, this level of creativity raises the bar for what can be possible with them.
Finally, there were the new Hero Talents. Instead of expanding the talent trees of each class and specialization with a new row, each specialization can pick between two themed trees that build on class fantasy. As a warrior, I could choose between the Slayer or the Mountain Thane trees. One lets me kill things more efficiently. The other lets me grow and become a barbarian. In the Alpha, we could choose between getting every hero talent point with a nerf or level normally. I chose the latter for authenticity’s sake.
Just barely hitting level 72 as I finished the zone’s main quests in The War Within, I couldn’t get a good taste of the grand picture of the Mountain Thane hero talent, yet there were hints in the talent selection. Specifically, I was slowly introducing lightning attacks into my build using abilities commonly used in my rotation. My first hero talent selected, “Call of Thunder,” was incentivized using Thunder Clap, an AOE ability not normally used in my fury rotation, much more frequently and building its potency.
At this stage, it felt a little like a button bloat because it led to just another button to press. But reading the rest of the hero talent tree, it’s easy to see how once you get the last talent, a fury warrior’s rotation can change slightly to incorporate new abilities while cutting others for maximum potency. It will be interesting to see how the final product shapes up as hero talent updates will be pushed directly to Alpha from now on rather than being talked about in blog posts as they’ve been done to date.
Even in the early stages of Alpha testing, The War Within feels like the start of a new era for the long-running MMO. The set-up to a grand story is told quite well within a zone that makes the threat feel personal in ways the story hasn’t been said in many years. The new Delve system is awesome, and I cannot wait to check out more of them in the coming weeks and months. The Isle of Dorn is a fantastic way to kick off the Worldsoul Saga. All that’s left now is to see if they can keep up with all these new innovations in making World of Warcraft define why it’s been running for so long in the year 2024.
World of Warcraft: The War Within is available in 2024 on PC and Mac.
