With its seventh expansion, World of Warcraft not only went back to its Horde vs. Alliance roots, it brought almost everything back down to earth for the first time in a very long time. What a great decision.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth — so far — seems like the perfect new adventure for the 14-year-old game. I've put nearly a dozen hours into the new expansion since it launched Monday night and it's made me realize how much WoW needed to take a breather from all the world-threatening, space-faring action it's been dishing out for years.
That's not to say that Battle for Azeroth is boring; far from it. It's just not over-the-top like the last two expansions. The leveling, the scale, your character's role in everything that's happening – it's all so much more grounded than it has been since players traveled through time in 2014's Warlords of Draenor and then became the most powerful characters to ever exist while fighting back against the universe's biggest threat in 2016's Legion.
In Battle for Azeroth, players go back to being adventurers rather than gods that other legendary characters follow regularly. You still feel important, of course, just not like the most important orc, night elf, dwarf, or troll in the world.
The feeling I get from Battle for Azeroth reminds me of the same feeling I get when I played WoW before any expansions came out and while leveling up to the original level cap of 60 (which is now halfway to maximum, by the way).
The two new islands, Zandalar and Kul Tiras, have that lived-in feeling that the original continents have. Storylines on the new islands are mostly about you assisting the people that are already established there, so it doesn't feel like the developers are trying to make you the hottest thing in town. Instead of facing threats from outside Azeroth, you're dealing with what's going on right there on those islands.
Not only does Battle for Azeroth succeed in grounding players that just recently wielded the most powerful weapons ever and drove back an army of demonic aliens, it succeeds in setting a theme that nods back to the WoW's roots with more natural environments.
In recent years, players have spent a lot of time in fantasy-heavy lands, including alien planets with lots of spiky and rocky zones.
The best way to describe the six new zones of Battle for Azeroth is earthy. I haven't quite reached all of them in my time with the expansion, but after spending time in Zuldazar, Tiragarde Sound, and Voldun, this expansion feels like an extension of old Azeroth.
There are still astounding spectacles throughout, but you're not punched in the face with spectacles and big new ideas at every turn. It's a little more comfortable and understated, which helps those stand-out moments really stand out.
I'm excited to see where the rest of this expansion takes us, which is not something I've felt about all the expansions thus far, that's for sure.
Topics Blizzard Entertainment Gaming
