World of Warcraft: The War Within – New Expansion Announced
INTRODUCTION
Hello and welcome to our World of Warcraft: The War Within post! Here we will cover everything regarding the newly announced expansion that is part of the trilogy which was revealed by Chris Metzen during Blizzcon 2023. Blizzcon has truly been a ‘blessing’ in terms of what was announced and which things were said, but everything that Blizzard does in the past years should be taken with a grain of salt and we shouldn’t fall for the ‘charm’ just yet.
In reality, if we were to judge solely on what was said, then there’s a ton of things to look forward to. Starting from the new WoW Classic: Season of Discovery, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred – the first expansion, WoW Classic: Cataclysm and of course the Worldsoul Saga for WoW Retail which is gave us a glimpse at the next THREE WoW Expansions which was never before done.
With this post we will do our best to cover a bit of Worldsoul Saga and all the Expansions of the game that were mentioned as well as a bit about them, but we’ll mostly focus on what we know regarding The War Within which is the next one coming after Dragonflight. Lets just hope that Blizzard lives up to the hype in all areas, but especially for the next WoW Expansions – because at this point, everybody needs it!
Without further ado, lets go over what was said and what we know so far regarding The War Within!
World of Warcraft: The War Within Official Cinematic (Video)
What will World of Warcraft: The War Within post cover?
We will do our best to cover everything that was revealed regarding the Worldsoul Saga, and put special focus on what is to come in the next expansion – The War Within. We will divide everything in points so that it’s easier for you!
- World of Warcraft: Worldsoul Saga – What we know so far
- World of Warcraft: The War Within Storyline
- Facts regarding The War Within Expansion
- New Zones
- New Allied Races
- Warbands
- Hero Talents
- Dragonriding in World of Warcraft: The War Within
World of Warcraft: Worldsoul Saga Explained
Ever since Chris Metzen left Blizzard, there was somewhat of a giant ‘hole’ left in terms of the overall Story-writing and the actual ‘feeling’ of something having a purpose or a thoughtful trajectory. When it comes to storytelling there is nobody that can come close to the man who actually made the whole Warcraft story in the first place. Thankfully, Chris Metzen has definitely showed us that he’s back and working at 100% capacity to bring us something that makes sense in the coming years.
There was a lot of questions regarding what the next expansion would be, is it going to be the ‘old gods’ theme, where do we go from ‘For Azeroth’ being yelled every cinematic and trailer in the past years, and so on. Finally on Blizzcon it was revealed that the ‘hook’ which will establish the next few years of Warcraft can be found in some of the earlier expansions.
Back in WotLK, we went into Ulduar, but we didn’t quite understand what it was for. After that, we’ve found ourselves in BFA and whatever was going on there in Silithus, and lastly we’ve had the Shadowlands which kind of went ‘off-script’ completely into the afterlife and finishing the whole Lich King saga that was dragging on ever since Bolvar took up the helm, up until Sylvanas destroyed it and paved the way to Shadowlands. After Shadowlands was done and with Dragonflight coming to a close, the only thing that was connecting all of these expansions was Magni Bronzebeard.
Ever since we first saw him, he’s always been delving into things and researching the Titans, and in almost every expansion we could see him having more and more meaning, but it was never quite there yet, and his whole existence wasn’t really explained, nor was he considered to be anything but an NPC that helped us at certain points to understand one point of the story. However, when it comes to the Worldsoul Saga, this is no longer the case.
The Worldsoul Saga Storyline
The Worldsoul Saga is an Epic Storyline that was imagined as the culmination of the last 20 years of World of Warcraft Storytelling. It is a storyline that cannot be told in a single expansion, hence it will play out in the next THREE expansions over the course of the next few years. Blizzard is working on bringing these expansions a little faster than they are used to. What we know from the past expansions is that they last for about 2 years and contain 3-4 Seasons for PvP/M+ and obviously with each Season comes a new Raid.
If we are to deduct what was said on Blizzcon, the next 3 expansions covering the Worldsoul Saga are going to be released at a much faster rate than it’s predecessors. The Storyline will span over the course of the next few years and the expansions that will be included in the story are:
- World of Warcraft: The War Within
- World of Warcraft: Midnight
- World of Warcraft: The Last Titan
so let us cover what we know about them!
World of Warcraft: The War Within – 10th and our Next Expansion
With Sargeras plunging his sword into Azeroth at the end of BFA, Blizzard left the story with a bad taste in our mouth. Things that were unsaid and things that required explanations are necessary in order to fully comprehend the meaning of Azeroth getting stabbed by the huge sword. The idea is for “The War Within” expansion to cast some light upon these events and to bring us the full picture of what is actually going on.
From what we saw in the announcement cinematic(you can see it above), is that Thrall and Anduin as well as many others are hearing a voice calling out to them(presumed to be Azeroth itself), as well as images of the Void that have been displayed. The cinematic itself doesn’t explain much, except that Blizzard is going ‘too hard’ on the emotions and Anduin blaming himself for everything he did during Shadowlands, trying to hide away or find meaning.
However, the place where they are located does hint towards Silithus and the last scene where Thrall and Anduin look at the sword does actually show that the beginning of the next expansion should revolve around the sword itself. Possible it will be the starting point of the storyline that will make us descend into Azeroth itself and try to find out what is going on. This brings us to the facts regarding The World Within and what changes are coming with it, so lets go over those!
World of Warcraft: The War Within – what we know so far
There are many new things that are being added and we will go through all of them. However, this is just a glimpse at what is to come and if we are to judge by what was said during Blizzcon 2023, there’s a whole lot more coming.
- Level Cap Increase: Level 80
- New Zones: FOUR New Zones, all subterranean
- Delves: Endgame activity that can be done Solo or in a Group
- New Allied Race: The Earthen
- Warbands: Alts that you select can become a part of your Warband. They will share all achievements and progress made on any of them between each other.
- Hero Talents: A new ‘specialization’ talent tree that gives your Character a chance to empower certain abilities and choose a path.
- Dragonriding stays: This type of flying will still remain after Dragonflight.
World of Warcraft: The War Within Release Date
While an exact release date for WoW: The War Within remains unconfirmed, insights from the pre-purchase page on the official website suggest an anticipated arrival by the end of 2024.
Aligning with the typical timeline of previous expansions, which commonly span approximately two years, Dragonflight was released in late November 2022. Consequently, it is reasonable to expect The War Within to make its debut sometime between October and December of the following year.
As with any development timeline, unforeseen circumstances may impact release dates, so staying tuned to official announcements from Blizzard Entertainment will provide the most accurate and up-to-date information on the release of WoW: The War Within.
The Isle of Dorn
New Zones coming with The War Within Expansion
Considering Sargeras drove his sword into Azeroth, it is only fitting that the New Zones are the ones that are beneath the surface of Azeroth. With the coming of “The War Within” expansion, we will be set on a journey into the depths and we will delve deeper in order to find out what is happening. In this expansion we will descend into the Hearth of Azeroth itself and explore new subterranean kingdoms, and engage with ancient cultures like the “Earthen” and the Nerubians of Azj’Kahet.
The Ringing Deeps
The forces of darkness will be closing in on the Worldsoul and we will have to defend Azeroth. Once we go into the underworld, we will find ourselves in Khaz Algar, which is the home of the “Earthen” and Dornogal will be the main city as well as the place where Players will mostly be stationed at(similar to Dalaran in WotLK or Valdrakken in Dragonflight).
The FOUR Zones that we’ll be introduced to, are:
- Isle of Dorn
- The Ringing Deeps
- Hallowfall
- Azj-Kahet
Hallowfall
Azj-Kahet
All four of these zones have their own distinguished features and they look quite colorful and happy – surprisingly since it’s beneath the ground, but it is what it is. The only zone that is dark and incased in shadows is the Azj-Kahet – naturally.
Delves, the new Dungeon-like activity
What we can say at first glance is that the concept of Delves is similar to the Torghast, Tower of the Damned in Shadowlands. It is an activity that Players can go into Solo or as a Group and it will provide good rewards. Also, even though this Dungeon-like activity is being added, Blizzard won’t do much to force people into doing these every week(yeah right).
Another thing that will be added to Delves is that if you’re in a Group and you’re missing a certain Role, you can take an NPC which will fulfill that Role(if you’re missing a DPS, the NPC will DPS etc.).
There will be various difficulty levels, Bosses, and Puzzles to solve if you wish to reach the loot at the end. It is possible that there will be various achievements and rewards that will be tied to a specific Season, and they with each Season new things will come, as is with PvP & Mythic+.
New Allied Race – The Earthen
Dwarves were ALWAYS on the side of the Alliance. Even if we look at the regular Dwarves and the Dark-Iron Dwarves. However, with the coming of the Earthen this will change. The Earthen will be a Dwarf Allied Race that can be either Alliance or Horde.
This new race will be able to become every Class except for: Druid, Demon Hunter and Evoker.
If you thought that this Race will be unlock via endless Reputation farming or doing achievements that require effort – this won’t be the case for the Earthen. They will be playable and unlocked by simply doing The War Within campaign. This is a great relief for many of us who wanted to unlock all the Allied Races and had to invest a lot of time and effort before we could play the Race we wanted.
Warbands are coming to World of Warcraft: The War Within
FINALLY! The thing we always wanted, but we never seemed to quite get it. Whenever we talk about WoW we must mention that most of us have a passion for at least having a couple of alts, even if they are of the same Class for different purposes, or if they are different Classes for the purpose of seeing what each of them can do – we all have them.
However, since the dawn of time this subject was ‘taboo’ and it was always hard or time consuming to keep up a multitude of alts. Once The War Within expansion comes, this will be an issue of the past. Blizzard has been trying hard to keep up differences between Characters on a single account, and make sure that you always know what your “main” is and who are the “alts”, but they always tried to give us a solution to how we can ‘catch-up’ on our alts if we wanted to re-roll. Even though the catchup mechanics in the game are quite good and various achievements and accessories are ‘Account Wide’, we still have trouble of having to farm certain reputations, do quests and waste time on something we’ve done at least once previously.
With the coming of The War Within we will be able to form a Warband between our Characters which will allow them to share many things, such as:
- Bank Access: A much bigger bank will be added, as well as a Reagent bank. So you won’t need to mail items and gold between the linked characters.
- Renown and Reputations: For now this will apply only to Dragonflight and The War Within reputations and renown.
- Achievements: All will be shared between alts, but it is yet unclear if this will apply to every achievement or only the ones from Dragonflight onwards.
- Transmog: Can be learned by any Character, but only worn by the appropriate Class.
- Flight paths: ANY discovered flight path will automatically be unlocked for the others inside the Warband.
This is a pretty big leap, and is addressing many of the major concerns regarding alts and swapping your main character that posed an issue in the past. This is not without it’s own faults and it’s definitely not the pinnacle, but it’s a start. If you decided to change which Character you want to be your ‘main’ in the middle of an expansion, it’s difficult to go on another and have to do ALL THE GRIND again. Sharing things mentioned above will definitely take the sting out of switching Characters in the coming expansion.
Even though most of the things seem to be applied to Dragonflight onwards, it is still a pretty decent thing and even though it doesn’t include everything the Players would want, it’s a start!
Hero Talents and Specializations
Similar to “Delves” this kind of reminds us of Path of Exile. If you’ve never played it, you can simply look under ‘Ascendancy’. What do these new Hero Talents or Ascendancies actually represent? Well they will allow you to focus more in depth inside your Specialization. For example: If you’re a Boomkin Druid, you can focus on becoming a “Keeper of the Grove”, Shamans can become an actual “Far-Seer” and so much more. It will be an interesting concept which will allow Players to go beyond just picking a Specialization, but actually specializing inside the specialization.
With the new Talent trees that were implemented in Dragonflight there will even more things that Players can work around in order to maximize their output and make unique Specs that work best to each of them individually.
These are still early stages, but if we are to imagine – this will be great!
Dragonriding in The War Within
There was a lot of speculation going around regarding the Dragonriding and what will become of it after the Dragonflight expansion comes to a close. The answer is quite simply – it’s here to stay! After you’ve experienced flying over 1400% more speed, how can you go back to the old 280% or 310% flying, or even worse to the 100% ground mounts..
To be specific, the concept of Dragonriding will continue to exist, but it will be called “dynamic flying” once we leave the Dragon Isles. There won’t be a need to collect any Dragon Glyphs and they will be instantly unlocked.
What we know is that you may choose to activate or deactivate this feature. However, it will be limited to only ONE(1) mount. You will also be able to use this on ANY mount that you own, so this will bring back the old and dusty mounts that were sitting on the shelf. Most of the old mounts should be available and able to use dynamic flying, but it’s still being worked on.
This would be all regarding the World of Warcraft: The War Within – which is a first part of the Worldsoul Saga. However, before we close things off, we’d like to touch base on the other two announced expansions which form the trinity of the Worldsoul Saga. Those are:
- World of Warcraft: Midnight
- World of Warcraft: The Last Titan
World of Warcraft: Midnight
This will be the second expansion coming after the World of Warcraft: The War Within. It will bring us back to the Old World. We will be going to the fabled lands of Quel’Thalas. We will meet the forces of the Void which will try to extinguish the Sunwell and removing all the light from the world, thus putting it forever into darkness and fear.
We will have to reunify the scattered Elven tribes of Azeroth, and make a stand with the forces of the Light to banish the shadow forever. However, as it always happens, something might spiral out of control and lead us to the third expansion coming after World of Warcraft: Midnight, it will be World of Warcraft: The Last Titan expansion.
World of Warcraft: The Last Titan
After the World of Warcraft Midnight, we come to the culmination of the Worldsoul Saga, which is called World of Warcraft: The Last Titan. Judging by the way things were explained on Blizzcon 2023, as well as the logo of the expansion, it’s safe to assume that this expansion refers to Azeroth being The Last Titan and Sargeras wanting to kill Azeroth by plunging the sword back in BFA. This assumption would round things up and would make sense.
However, in this expansion we will be going back to Northrend, and there at Ulduar, we will witness the return of the Titans to Azeroth. Does this mean that we will be seeing Illidan again? – Definitely if you ask me. At Ulduar we will also uncover a vast conspiracy, one that stretches throughout the history of the world and one that will challenge everything that was said so far and everything that we were lead to believe is true until this point in the Warcraft universe, about the Titans, their intentions as well as the true nature of Azeroth.
CONCLUSION
It would seem that so far we were given a much clearer view into what we can expect in the coming years from WoW. It’s up to the developers and directors to make sure that things go smooth and that all of these transitions make sense and form a whole. If we are to trust what was said by Chris Metzen, the Worldsoul Saga, starting with the World of Warcraft: The War Within expansion, will be the Pillar of their next project and it will culminate and unite everything that was said and done story wise so far.
Will this be the spark that lights the World of Warcraft 2 dream? Is there something more that will be revealed in the future and made clearer? Will some leaks maybe give us a hint at what comes after the Worldsoul Saga? If what Metzen said was true, it means that this story and after it’s done – will launch World of Warcraft into the next 20 years of prosperity.
When it comes to “The War Within” expansion, we feel that things will be much better than they are in Dragonflight and hopefully many of the Players will come to back and stay in the game. We will see! The visions that we saw on the cinematic and the ones that Thrall and Anduin were seeing, are somewhat different from the visions some other Azeroth inhabitants are seeing, so to end things off, we’ll leave you with another video!
Also, if you need any help with any WoW Services, make sure to check out our site, we can help you with Arena, Coaching, Raids, Mythic+, Leveling, Farming or if you wish to purchase Accounts or Characters and much more!
You can also get in touch with us on Livechat or Discord, our Support is up 24/7!