'Battle of Azeroth' Brings War Back to 'World of Warcraft'
"World of Warcraft" is still the largest Massively-Multiplayer Online role-playing game around, but after more than a decade, Blizzard may have overextended with their last two expansions. The upcoming "Battle for Azeroth," which was just announced at this year's BlizzCon, looks to turn things around by going back to the game's roots.
The seventh expansion of "World of Warcraft" is a nod to the main theme that launched the "Warcraft" franchise itself. As their new Azeroth cinematic trailer revealed in a series of highly-polished cutscenes, it's time for the old conflicts between the Alliance and Horde factions to regain center stage.
For "World of Warcraft" creative director Alex Afrasiabi, the world of Azeroth should still be the star of the story for the franchise, even as it has increasingly strayed into other realms in the recent expansions. "'Battle for Azeroth' is the conflict at the heart of the franchise of Warcraft," he puts it simply.
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To put the new divide into sharp perspective, Blizzard is planning to separate the factions more. Game director Ion Hazzikostas explained that "The factions are actually going to largely level up separately," a decision underscored by the Horde-aligned Forsaken losing their Eastern Kingdom capital Lordaeron.
"They have their own separate sections of the world as they seek out these new allies. But then at max level, the entire world opens up for everybody. So from a player's perspective, the amount of outward space that you have for content will effectively double when you hit max level," he added, as quoted by Polygon.
The news comes as Blizzard announced "World of Warcraft Classic," a throwback to the "World of Warcraft" as it is when it first launched. This looks to be Blizzard's new direction in winning over the game's player base back after their relatively recent "Warlords of Draenor" expansion proved to be a costly flop that was only partially salvaged by "Legion."
The video below outlines the basic theme of "World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth," the latest upcoming expansion for Blizzard's giant MMO franchise. Release date details are expected to come up in the following weeks.
