It’s easy to forget, when reflecting on World of Warcraft’s mark on the gaming industry and pop culture, just how different the game has felt over its various iterations. With its consistent bi-yearly expansions over two decades pushing it to stay relevant in a dramatically different gaming scene to the one it launched to 20 years ago, WoW has been defined and redefined by several different eras of gameplay.
Whether it’s the ‘vanilla’ experience of pre-Cataclysm; the ‘new world’ experience of Cataclysm through to Legion, where Blizzard wrestled with updating WoW for a more modern audience; or the ‘borrowed power’ experience of Legion to Shadowlands, in which players needed to grind out content to stay relevant – each era had its highlights and pitfalls that have each sculpted and changed players’ perception of the WoW experience.
