World of Warcraft: The War Within Needs to Break a Recent Series Tradition

After the breath of fresh air that was Dragonflight, World of Warcraft is preparing to enter a whole new era with the upcoming The War Within. Dubbed the WorldSoul Saga, this new era will see players experience a brand-new overarching story that promises to change Azeroth forever. While not a lot is known about what is on the horizon, World of Warcraft fans have gotten a good look at The War Within, and so far, it looks extremely promising.

It seems like The War Within may be doing almost everything right. Not only is it giving players everything they would expect from a new World of Warcraft expansion, but it is also fixing some of the game’s oldest problems. Hopefully this new experience does not end up getting cut short like the previous two expansions have.

WoW Expansions Could Be So Much More if Given the Chance

Recent Expansions Have Adopted a Troubling Trend

For years, the majority of World of Warcraft expansions seemed to be following the same exact model. Each pack would often be set up with a pre-patch, then the expansion would be released with a plethora of content, and then players could often expect three to four major patches to build out the game’s content further. Additionally, smaller patches would sometimes be mixed in to further break up the content. These patches would serve as a way for Blizzard to release new raids, dungeons, grinds, and stories for players to experience. Many times, it would also include new areas to explore.

Warlords of Draenor was the first expansion to only have two major patches, with its second patch being one of the longest in the game’s history. While it seemed like that would just be a one-off thing, it has actually become the norm since Shadowlands. Both Shadowlands and Dragonflight only received two major content patches, with a few smaller patches in between. These smaller patches did help alleviate the absence of a third major patch, but it still felt like something was missing, especially in Shadowlands.

The War Within Needs to Change Up the Formula

Since World of Warcraft‘s current roadmap only goes until the end of 2024, fans do not know yet what The War Within’s content cycle will look like. They know that a pre-patch will kick off this new saga sometime this summer, then the expansion will launch shortly after, and a final minor patch will continue the story in the fall. 2025 will probably be filled to the brim with content for WoW fans to look forward to, but as of now, that all remains a mystery.

WoW‘s new WorldSoul Saga is supposed to be this massive never-before-seen era, so the content should reflect that. There should be countless stories waiting to be told, massive new features to mess around with, and new areas to explore on a consistent basis. Just like with Dragonflight, if the expansion is good, then players will likely want to stick around it for longer, and Blizzard should let them do just that.

The fact that Blizzard has also revealed the two expansions that will follow The War Within means there is a chance that it will continue this recent trend. If fans know what is coming, they may want to speed along to that endpoint. And if the studio already has these plans for the future, then it may also be planning a much quicker expansion content cycle. But hopefully it is not, because the more content that World of Warcraft gets, the stronger it will be.

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is an incredibly successful MMORPG that has been going strong for almost two decades. It’s one of the highest-grossing franchises in history and is widely considered the most popular MMORPG ever made.

Released

November 23, 2004

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Engine

Unreal Engine

ESRB

T for Teen: Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence (online interactions not rated)

Expansions

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic