Within a panel broadcasted during the second day of BlizzCon 2023, Blizzard shared a lot of new details about World of Warcraft‘s expansion The War Within.
We learn more about many of the new features coming with the expansion, which was announced yesterday alongside two more that will come within the “Worldsoul Saga.”
These include Delves, the Warband concept, Hero Talents, Dynamic Flight, and the new Battleground, on top of new improvements to the UI, like the Spellbook and the Quest log.
Delves are adventures for 1-5 players and they’re role-agnostic. They’re a new endgame pillar, and they involve variety, replayability, flexibility, and progression.
They’ve been built on learnings from Thorgast, Islands, and Scenarios. They’re an alternative offered in parallel to other kinds of endgame, and unlike Thorgast, they’re not required to compete and progress.
They’re about exploring, unraveling missions, and solving mysteries. They’re not like dungeons and they’re all going to end with a room full of treasure. Only some of them are going to have a final boss and the gameplay and feel of the experience varies.
While they’re instances, they’re seamless and you can enter without loading screens.
They’re also tied with seasons narratively and thematically and each season has a different NPC companion. The first will be Brann Bronzebeard. You can spec him and power him up.
Interestingly, some of the chests at the end of the Delves require keys to be opened and you can earn them in the outer world. These exist so that they can’t be infinitely farmed.
Below you can find a list of the Delves. There are 12 plus a secret one.
Delves will be integrated with the Vault, but PvP will be removed from it.
Below you can see cosmetic rewards exclusively available via Delves.
The customizable mount below will also be available via completion of the Delves experience.
Next, we hear about Warbands. This feature was created due to the fact that playing alts nowadays is the norm.
It’s designed to make World of Warcraft alt-friendly, focusing on convenience and flexibility, but it doesn’t award players with power, so people are not required to play alts to compete.
Below you can see a bank. Not only you can deposit items accessible by all of your characters, but also reagents, making you able to craft directly from the bank.
Blizzard will implement Warband items that you can transfer to your alts before they are equipped and become soulbound.
Transmogs will move into the Warband Collection, shared between your alts.
Reputation and renown will work account-wide in The War Within and beyond. Blizzard also aims to make it retroactive starting with Dragonflight. Flight Path unlock will also become Warband-wide. The advancement of your Delves companion will also be account-wide.
The vast majority of achievements will also become account-wide and it’ll be the new norm.
You’ll also get a nice campfire login screen with a selection of your favorite characters.
Moving on to Hero Talents, it’s a system that offers complete flexibility to suit your play. They can be easily swapped. It allows players to explore class fantasy and manage complexity at the same time.
When you get to level 80 you’ll have them all. The choice is between the talents you want active, and there are “choice nodes” that you can toggle between different options.
Below you can find the abilities for two of the Druid’s trees, “Keeper of the Grove” and “Elune’s Chosen”. Of course, they’re not final.
Below you can find a list of all 39 of the hero specs. They should all (or most) playable when The War Within enters alpha probably in spring 2024.
The new Earthen allied race is earned simply by fully playing the campaign. They will join as either Horde or Alliance.
They have 10 available classes and below you can also see the heritage armor.
Dragonflight will remain part of the game with Dynamic Flight. It will extend the feature to as many flying mounts as possible. It’ll be available in all flyable areas and from the start in Kgaz Algar.
Players will be able to choose between Dynamic Flight and TPC Flying (normal flight). Dragonrighting glyphs will be shifted into an evergreen system. I
Dynamic Flight will become the new default for new players.
A new Battleground is also coming in The War Within. It’s a new 10v10 map set in The Ringing Deeps.
Below you can see an early mockup of the layout. More new battleground maps will be added going forward.
Interface updates will include a modernization of the spellbook making it more suitable to high resolution screens.
The questlog will also be improved as you can see below.
Cross-realm Guilds will let you apply and recruit freely, regardless of realm. There won’t be realm restrictions on Mythic raiding. It’s another step toward the goal of removing barriers to social play in WoW.
It’s worth mentioning that BlizzCon 2023 also showcased reveals for other Blizzard games, including the first expansion for Diablo 4 and the next hero for Overwatch 2.
