Blizzard Entertainment dropped several major bombshell announcements for World of Warcraft at Blizzcon 2023. Not only will World of Warcraft: Classic be receiving the Cataclysm expansion in the form of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Classic, but World of Warcraft will be receiving THREE major expansions in the future — World of Warcraft: The War Within, World of Warcraft: The Last Titan, and World of Warcraft: Midnight
These expansions will tell the tale of World of Warcraft’s next ongoing storyline, The Worldsoul Saga. The expansion that will be the opening act of this saga will be World of Warcraft: The War Within. This expansion is slated to be released in 2024 and will introduce new zones to explore, new dungeons and raids to conquer, new game systems to master, and more.
Here is everything you need to know about World of Warcraft: The War Within.
World of Warcraft: The War Within: What is it about?
The premise of World of Warcraft: The War Within is that Anduin Wrynn and Thrall have been experiencing visions where a mysterious voice singing a Radiant Song, is calling out to them from the depths of Azeroth.
To uncover the source of this voice, Thrall and Anduin gather a band of heroes and lead an expedition into the unexplored depths of their world. Our heroes will also find allies on their journey such as an ancient race of Dwarves known as the Earthen. Also, Magni Bronzebeard and Alleria Windrunner are set to return for this expansion to accompany Anduin and Thrall on their trip.
As the expeditionary force makes its way through the underground caverns, players will have to fight new threats threatening to cut their journey and their lives short.
The villain leading this threat is Xal'atath, an ancient being who serves a chaotic, otherworldly force known as the Void. After being freed from being sealed in a cursed black blade for untold millennia, she seeks to create a new dark legacy to replace The Black Empire which fell at the hands of the titan-forged.
Our heroes pose a danger to Xal'atath's vision so she decides to pit them against her newly acquired army - the Nerubians of Azj-Kahet. Nerubians are a race of deadly humanoid arachnids that have existed in Azeroth since ancient times.
Xal'atath conscripted the Nerubians and their queen, Ansurek, to serve her. In return for their service, Xal'atath promises to help release the Nerubians from their isolation, restore their empire to its former glory, and grant them the power to transform into terrifying soldiers through a horrifying evolution.
Long-time Warcraft fans should beware Nerubians of Azj-Kahet as these creatures are far more dangerous and cunning than the Nerubians that served the Lich King. These monsters are survivors of countless wars that ravaged the world for thousands of years and will do whatever it takes to achieve victory.
World of Warcraft: The War Within: What will the gameplay be like?
The gameplay of World of Warcraft: The War Within will be the same tab-target-based combat system, team-based dungeon crawling, and exploration World of Warcraft is famous for. In addition, it will feature a smorgasbord of new gameplay systems, zones, dungeons, raids, and an allied race.
New zones
Players will come across new, never-before-seen locales as they make their way into the depths of Azeroth to find the Radiant Song. Four new zones have been announced thus far:
- Isle of Dorn: A lush, forest-filled zone that resides on the island of Khaz Algar and is the home of the Earthen and other indigenous species. Here you will find Eathern preparing Cinderbrew Mead made of molten honey and a city where the Oathsworn live, carrying out their duties as Edicts of the Titans.
- Ringing Deeps: Located beneath the Isle of Dorn lies the Ringing Deeps, a large network of underground boundaries, forges, and factories where the Earthen conduct their work.
- Hallowfall: Hallowfall is a gigantic hollow area bordered by an underground sea that appears to be endless. A tribe of humans known as the Arathi live here and fight a never-ending battle to protect their homes from the Nerubians.
- Azj-Kahet: Within the deepest, darkest depths of the earth lies the ruined Nerubian kingdom of Azj-Kahet. Players will need to exercise extreme caution and utilize pheromones to throw off the Nerubian's senses when exploring this zone lest they wish to meet a tragic end.
As a side-note for those worrying about exploring miles of underground caves, Dragonriding will be allowed in these zones to make travel easier. In fact, prior to the release of The War Within, there will be an update that will make World of Warcraft: Dragonflight's Dragonriding mechanic available in flyable areas for many flying mounts.
Players will also have the option to toggle between dynamic flight and the original flying style introduced World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.
New dungeons and raids
World of Warcraft: The War Within will include four new level-up Dungeons, four new max-level Dungeons, and a new Raid Dungeon.
The Raid Dungeon will be called The Nerub’ar Palace and will be available to participate once Season 1 of The War Within begins. It will be the culmination of the expansion's opening story and see players unite to defeat Xal'atath and the Nerubians of Azj-Kahet.
New Allied Race: Earthen
There will be a new Allied Race to unlock and play as for both Horde and Alliance players called the Earthen. The Earthen are a pre-historic race of Dwarves made of stone and gems.
They were created by the Titans to help shape the subterranean caverns of Azeroth during its infancy and were given a series of duties and edicts to carry out. However, when the Titans left Azeroth and left the Earthen to their own devices, the gem-entrusted Dwarves lost their unity and divided into three factions.
- The Oathsworn: This a faction of Earthen who strictly upholds the edicts given to them by the Titans. They are tasked with protecting the Coreway, a gate that leads into Azeroth's core.
- Unbound: These Earthen were charged with providing materials needed to keep TItan installations running but have abandoned their edicts to live in quarries and mines.
- Machine Speakers: Machine Speakers are Earthen who have also strayed from their edicts but continue working on repairing Titan machinery out of obligation.
To unlock the Earthen, players will need to progress through the expansion's main campaign and endgame questline. Once unlocked, players will be able to create Earthen characters as the following classes:
- Death Knight
- Hunter
- Mage
- Monk
- Paladin
- Priest
- Rogue
- Shaman
- Warlock
- Warrior
Levelling up an Earthen character will reward players with the Earthen Heritage Armor set.
The Delves
World of Warcraft: The War Within will introduce an evergreen system called the Delves. The Delves will be an endgame activity where players complete quests for the Dragonscale Expedition and earn rewards such as mounts, titles, achievements, and gear.
This activity will launch with twelve unique Delves dungeons to explore with scalable difficulty and they can be completed solo or with a party of up to five players. Season 1 of the Delves will feature Brann Bronzehead as a seasonal NPC compassion and he will offer players aid by gifting them a customizable talent and ability system.
The gear rewards in particular are significant as they will be on par with Mythic+10/Mythic+15 gear or Heroic Raid gear. This means that players who don't have time to commit to Raid schedules or prefer playing alone with a small group of friends can catch up to the current gear meta.
In addition, the rewards you can obtain from The Delves will be integrated into the Great Vault.
Warbands
World of Warcraft: The War Within will implement a new system for the player accounts called Warbands. This is a platform that will allow transmog cosmetic options, Reputation, Renown and more resources to be shared amongst all of a player's created characters on their Battle.net account.
The Warband's functions will include:
- Warband Bank: This will allow you to store your items in a bank and share them across all your created characters on a single Battle.net account.
- Warbound Items: These are bonus personal loot items that drop at lower levels and can be shared with a player's alternate characters.
- Transmogrification Collection: The transmog system will be enhanced to allow players on one character to add extra class-specific gear that they can't equip to their transmog collection. For example, if a player playing as a Mage finds a piece of Warrior-only gear, they can add it to the transmog collection and use it for their Warrior character instead.
- Warband Reputations: Earning Reputation in The War Within will become accessible for all characters on a single Battle.net account through Warbands. For example, if you unlocked a recipe on a character, you won't need to earn the Reputation of a faction ever again when playing as an alternate character.
- Flight Paths: Unlocking flight paths on one character, will unlock them for all characters in your Warband.
- Delves: Levelling up NPC companions will be available to all characters in your Warband.
- Achievements: All achievements will be made account-wide.
- Login Screen: When logging into the game, you will see a selection of your created characters on the login screen, waiting to see who you will choose to play with.
Hero Talents
World of Warcraft: The War Within will introduce new Hero Talents to the current talent trees. There will be three new trees per class (except Druids which will have four and Demon Hunters which will have two) and can be switched at any time. The Hero Talents will unlock at Lv. 71 and players will begin earning a talent at level, up to ten points at Lv. 80.
The new Hero Specialization trees for each class are:
- Death Knight: Rider of the Apocalypse, San'layn, Deathbringer.
- Demon Hunter: Aldrachi Reaver, Fel-Scarred.
- Druid: Keeper of the Grove, Elune's Chosen, Wildstalker, Druid of the Claw.
- Evoker: Chronowarden, Ruby Adept, Scalecommander.
- Hunter: Sentinel, Pack Leader, Dark Ranger.
- Mage: Sunfury, Frostfire, Spellslinger.
- Monk: Master of Harmony, Shado-Pan, Conduit of the Celestials.
- Paladin: Lightsmith, Herald of the Sun, Templar.
- Priest: Voidweaver, Orale, Archon.
- Rogue: Deathstalker, Trickster, Fatebound.
- Shaman: Stormbringer, Farseer, Totemic.
- Warlock: Soul Harvester, Hellcaller, Diabolist
- Warrior: Colossus, Slayer, Mountain.
Longtime Warcraft fans may notice that some of these specs are likely inspired by units from the RTS game, Warcraft. Mountain Thane spec seems to be an homage to the Mountain King unit and the Dark Ranger spec sounds like it is inspired by Sylvanas Windrunner and Dark Ranger units.
World of Warcraft: The War Within: When is it coming out and on what platform?
World of Warcraft: The War Within is currently scheduled to be released sometime in 2024 on PC.
World of Warcraft: The War Within: Will there be a Special Edition?
World of Warcraft: The War Within is now available to pre-order on Battle.Net with three versions to purchase — the Base Edition, Heroic Edition, and Epic Edition. The Basic Edition will cost $49.99, the Heroic Edition will cost $69.99, and the Epic Edition will cost $89.99.
The content for each Edition is as follows:
Are you ready to begin The Worldsoul Saga?
World of Warcraft: The War Within is aiming to kickstart World of Warcraft's Worldsoul Saga with a bang through its mountain's worth of new gameplay content and systems.
Will Anduin and Thrall be able to discover what this Radiant Song? Will the Champions of Azeroth be able to stop Xal'atath from achieving her nefarious goals? Dive into the depths of Azeroth when this upcoming PC title releases in 2024 to find out.
