Blizzard is doing something unprecedented in World of Warcraft: Yesterday, they announced not only the next expansion, but also the two that would follow, with brief summaries of what those expansions are going to be about.
It is something big and epic and... let's not beat around the bush here, it's taking a page from Marvel Studios, even defining this extended period as a "Saga." (Given that Marvel has been struggling a bit in getting its Multiverse Saga to be as popular as its retroactively-defined Infinity Saga, there's a little nervousness in the back of my mind about it, but on the other hand, in practice this is pretty distinct).
While we got the most details about the upcoming expansion, The War Within, naturally, we also know what is coming along down the pipe.
Now, in a certain way, this isn't really all that new from Blizzard's end of things. They've long said that they've got World of Warcraft planned out a couple expansions in advance (meaning I wouldn't be surprised if they've already got some early concept work for whatever comes after The Last Titan, an expansion that will be coming out when I'm in my 40s, probably - which is insane for someone who started playing this game when he was 20).
What we've gotten for War Within seems to meet the criteria for a modern WoW expansion, with four zones at launch (as an old-schooler, I do somewhat miss the days of having places like Northrend, with its ten zones (eight of which were truly for leveling and questing - Crystalsong Forest was, admittedly, mostly there to look pretty and Lake Wintergrasp was just an outdoor battleground). There's no new playable class, but we just got the Evoker, so that's to be expected, and the Earthen Dwarves will be fulfilling the "new character incentive" that I think every expansion really should have (the only ones that didn't have them were Warlords and Shadowlands).
What is somewhat odd is that while War Within has a traditional expansion hook - giving us a new land to explore (and, excitingly, one that will truly be different, as the "continent" will be vertically stacked subterranean zones,) what we've heard of Midnight and the Last Titan is that both take place in previously-explored areas.
Now, Midnight is the big question here: the expansion is said to be set in Quel'thalas. Currently, what exists in-game as Quel'thalas is just the three zones that were added way back in Burning Crusade - Eversong Woods, the Ghostlands, and the Isle of Quel'danas. I have to imagine, though, that Midnight will take place in a larger region, as these zones are pretty compact, having been built to fit into the existing Eastern Kingdoms.
There's also "The Cataclysm Problem," in which beloved old zones were sort of forever lost (at least until WoW Classic came out) when the revamp happened. Mind you, I still think the leveling experience in the old world is monumentally improved thanks to the revamp back in 2010 (and yes, we've had over twice as much time with the Cataclysm version of the world as we had with the original,) but there's something to be said for preserving the old versions of places and things.
I suspect that what we'll be seeing is just a separate version of Quel'thalas created for Midnight. Not only will this allow them to expand it out and make it a much bigger area - worthy of a whole expansion - but it will keep the old version preserved and visitable.
Indeed, I could even imagine them grafting the new version onto the existing Eastern Kingdoms, allowing the old, BC-era version to remain tied to the Outland map as it currently is, and now instead of the big portal in the northern end of the Eastern Plaguelands, you'll have some Bronze Dragon NPC who can send you there.
Now, there is also a strong chance that Silvermoon will have to serve as a neutral hub for both Alliance and Horde players, but it will presumably be a rebuilt and refurbished version of the city.
Looking to the Last Titan, we're going to be going back to Northrend. The action will clearly revolve around Ulduar.
Now, if you had said that the original Quel'thalas zones were simply getting revamped and replaced, I'd oppose it, but I wouldn't be all that heartbroken - these are some of the oldest unchanged zones in WoW, and they show their age. But Wrath of the Lich King remains one of the most beloved expansions in WoW's history (while I think Legion eventually dethroned it as my favorite one, I think Wrath's legacy of accessible content definitely beats Legion's legacy of borrowed power mechanics). I cannot imagine that they'd do anything to break the existing version of Northrend, so I'm expecting we'll just be sent to an alternate version of it, much as the Wrath-era Dalaran and the Legion-era Dalaran both exist.
The next question is timing:
Chris Metzen said that they were planning on trying to get the expansions out faster - a goal that has eluded Blizzard for twenty years now. Personally, after the failed attempt to do so with Warlords of Draenor, which ultimately led us to spending the same two years with just very little to do in-game, I was sort of hoping that they'd given up on that goal.
What I wonder, and sort of worry, is that these expansions might be shortened in the interest of getting them out faster. In the last few expansions, we've lost the "intro raid" that used to be a staple - raids like Mogu'shan Vaults or Emerald Nightmare. While expansions have historically typically had three raid tiers, there was usually a shorter raid that you got before the first tier officially came out.
Now, granted, we've gotten three full tiers in the past few expansions, and in Warlords we did get the intro raid but only two full tier raids. It might be a sort of petty distinction, but with only three raids, Warlords was seen as something of an anemic anomaly, whereas that's been the norm recently. Of course, Shadowlands and Dragonflight have had a ton more "outdoor" content, so maybe judging an expansion purely by its raids is outdated.
I just hope that Midnight and The Last Titan don't feel just like big patches instead of expansions. But we'll see. And it's pretty far down the road.
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