It’s that time again, World of Warcraft is expanding its world even more as we enter The War Within. The DLC, The War Within, will flow a bit differently than previous expansions the massive multiplayer online game has had, in that this is set to be a trilogy of expansions exploring a storyline set in motion in the game’s first expansion, The Burning Crusade. It’s time to feel the repercussions of everything that has happened involving the Titans, but first is the new big bad, Xal’atath, who genuinely might be one of my favourite main enemies in the universe in a long time. We’ve had the Lich King, we’ve had the Old Gods, now I just want some insanely strong unhinged elf/spirit that possessed an elf that shows quite early how badass she is by beating Khadgar in a fight without batting an eye.

Before we get too much into what’s new in the expansion, I want to discuss the areas where World of Warcraft has generally excelled, and The War Within is no exception: the cutscenes and voice acting. Following the campaign through, you’ll see some of the most engaging story segments that World of Warcraft has put out in a long time, topped by some exceptional voice work for characters like Magni, or of course, Xal’atath. Xal’atath comes across as so threatening in every instance that you run into her, it’s all done really well and makes the story actually exciting to tackle, follow, and be involved in.

Time to talk about new features. As normal there’s a new race to take on, the Earthen. A new allied race that can play on either the alliance or horde side. They’re similar to dwarves and require you to play through the actual story to be able to even play. People that play World of Warcraft casually, similar to people that only play multiplayer in Call of Duty, may never get around to unlocking this class. By the looks of their racial traits, they would make for a good tank since they get bonus armour, or good at doing jobs and making money since they have an increased chance of getting bonus materials.

The story will take you to a whole new area of Khaz Algar, the Nerubians return as a main enemy type across eight new dungeons, four for leveling and four for the new level cap of 80. You’ll also be able to tackle a whole new expedition with delves, one of the most interesting new features in The War Within. Delves are mini instance dungeons that can be tackled alone or with friends, but most importantly you tackle them with our good friend Brann Bronzebeard.

With Brann, you’ll be able to set what type of character he is, and what abilities he uses. If you’re playing as a tank, great to have Brann deal the damage that you don’t necessarily do yourself. Delves reward you with XP and some gear, and are available in different tiers. These basically set difficulty, and at launch, there are three tiers available with more coming at the start of the first season of the expansion.

Another semi-new aspect to The War Within are the follower dungeons. Introduced officially a few months ago in the late stages of Dragonflight, follower dungeons let you tackle dungeons without needing to deal with the issue of finding random people to do them with and hope nobody ruins the experience. Now, bots will help you tackle each instance with a variety of control options, like telling them to take the lead, and they are actually pretty good at helping. So far, I have had significantly fewer issues with these dungeons than I have run into in the past, especially on release with an expansion.

The introduction of Warbands is a massive game-changer for long-term players. Warbands essentially creates an account-wide progression system. These let you transfer a lot of things between characters like achievements, transmogrifications, and most importantly, renown. Now when you make a new character, you won’t have to spend all sorts of time doing preparation before you actually start the fun. It’s actually fun to start an alternate character now, making it more attainable for anyone with less time to spend online.

Another new introduction are Hero Talents. Hero Talents are a new skill tree that gives you more customization over your build. For example, I have been playing as a Restoration Druid and using the Keeper of the Grove hero tree. This lets me summon minions to help me take care of enemies while I maintain healing teammates in dungeons. Each class has three Hero Talent trees with the option to have two set up and ready to swap between at any given time.

When it comes to big expansions like this, there’s always still a lot to come. For example, the first raid of the expansion won’t be available for a couple of weeks still, giving plenty of time to gear up your characters. As it stands right now, especially where we sit in the story, this feels like a new start for World of Warcraft. The War Within feels like it’s taking into consideration a lot of complaints that fans have had in the past with the story, and the big main enemy, and crafted this new trilogy around fixing it. It’s impossible to say where everything will go, but if there was any time to jump back into the MMO, this is it. I started playing World of Warcraft during The Burning Crusade and this is probably the most involved I’ve felt in it in a long time.

 

Final Verdict: 9.0

World of WarCraft: The War Within is available now on PC.

A copy of World of WarCraft: The War Within was provided by the publisher.