(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)
Some expansions begin with a new continent, a higher level cap and a list of features. Others begin with Gul'dan, a green crystal prison and the reveal of a character players have spent years asking Blizzard to bring back.
The second kind happened at Gamescom in Cologne yesterday. Not at BlizzCon, not after months of half-hidden clues, but right in the middle of summer: World of Warcraft: Legion is officially WoW's sixth expansion. The Burning Legion is invading Azeroth again, the Broken Isles will become the new battlefield and Illidan Stormrage appears to have a much larger role than a quick reference for veteran players.
The presentation had barely ended before guild chats, forums and social media filled with the same three subjects: who is creating a Demon Hunter, which Artifact Weapon belongs to our class, and does Illidan's return mean Blizzard is finally diving fully back into the old Warcraft stories?
The biggest audience reaction naturally came with the Demon Hunter. Ever since The Burning Crusade, players have asked why we could fight Illidan and his followers but never run around with warglaives, blindfolds and demonic magic ourselves. Blizzard is finally answering that question.
Demon Hunters will be a new hero class, comparable to the Death Knight introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. They begin at a higher level and receive their own opening experience explaining their connection to the Illidari and the Burning Legion. The class is entirely melee-focused and has two roles: Havoc for damage and Vengeance for tanking.
On paper, the play style almost sounds too mobile for World of Warcraft. Demon Hunters can double-jump, glide through the air, use Spectral Sight to locate hidden enemies and temporarily transform into a demonic form. During the presentation, the character looked less like a traditional WoW class and more as though someone had dropped a small action game into Azeroth.
That will probably create the first launch problem: everyone wants one. Expect starting areas where every name containing Illi, Demon, Shadow or Glaive is taken within minutes. Blizzard will probably be happy to have that problem for now. After years in which every new-class discussion ended with Demon Hunter, the response is mostly loud and enthusiastic.
The teaser immediately shows how Legion follows Warlords of Draenor. Gul'dan has not been defeated and ends up at Illidan's prison. Blizzard seems to be using the detour through alternate Draenor to bring a much older threat directly back to Azeroth.
Players defeated Illidan in the Black Temple at the end of The Burning Crusade, yet the character never quite felt like a closed chapter. His story left loose ends, some of his warnings were less ridiculous than they first appeared and his followers continued after his death. Gul'dan is now standing before his prison, and the message is fairly clear: somebody intends to let him out.
Blizzard is bringing back one of Warcraft's best-known characters without simply rebuilding Outland. The Burning Legion is larger than Illidan, but for many players he remains the recognisable face of that entire part of the story. His silhouette alone was enough to make the presentation hall erupt.
The new expansion takes place on the Broken Isles, a region that has existed in the background of the story since Warcraft III. The Tomb of Sargeras lies there, ancient Night Elf civilisations left their mark and several places that have so far mainly been names in books and quest text will finally become areas players can explore.
Blizzard showed Azsuna, Highmountain, Stormheim and Val'sharah, among other locations. The zones appear deliberately different: ruins and coastlines, snowy mountains, dark forests and places where the Emerald Nightmare is beginning to push through the normal world. Dalaran also returns as the central city, although it is moving from Northrend to the Broken Isles this time.
The level cap rises from 100 to 110. There will naturally be new dungeons, raids and world bosses, with the Emerald Nightmare and the Tomb of Sargeras among the names that immediately stand out. Blizzard has not yet explained every number, difficulty or endgame system, but these locations at least feel like places the Warcraft story has been moving towards for years.
The most ambitious idea may not be the Demon Hunter but the new Artifact Weapons system. Every class specialisation receives its own famous or otherwise important weapon, which grows alongside the character throughout the expansion. Paladins saw the Ashbringer, shamans saw the Doomhammer, while other specialisations will receive weapons and stories of their own.
The weapons earn Artifact Power, unlock new traits and can change appearance. Blizzard wants to avoid the familiar situation where a supposedly legendary weapon is replaced two quests later by a green axe with slightly better numbers. You do not merely carry this weapon; you develop it throughout the expansion.
The idea sounds wonderful and slightly strange at the same time. The Ashbringer has spent years as a unique object in Warcraft history. Soon every Retribution Paladin may be carrying one through Dalaran. Blizzard hopes different forms and colours will provide enough individuality, but it remains to be seen whether a famous weapon still feels legendary when half the raid is holding the same model.
Still, this is exactly the kind of discussion a new expansion needs. Players are already comparing screenshots, trying to guess which weapon belongs to their specialisation and wondering whether they should finally switch mains after all these years.
The new Order Halls also look like a response to a familiar problem in Warlords of Draenor. Garrisons were impressive, but they also left many players standing alone in private bases while cities and the open world felt emptier. Legion will not give every character another private fortress. Instead, every class receives a shared meeting place.
Paladins gather with other paladins, warlocks with warlocks, and rogues presumably somewhere nobody officially knows about. Players can send followers on missions from their Class Hall and strengthen their Artifact there. The system appears to retain part of the garrison technology while linking it to class identity and other players rather than to a silent personal mine.
That fits the rest of the reveal. Legion repeatedly asks what makes your class special. Not merely a different row of buttons, but a unique order, a unique base, a unique weapon and, in some cases, an entirely different way of moving through the world.
The excitement is real, but Blizzard is not receiving it unconditionally. Warlords of Draenor began with an excellent journey to level 100 and a spectacular world, but many players later grew tired of their garrisons and the amount of new content became a recurring argument. Patch 6.2 brought Tanaan Jungle and Hellfire Citadel, but it has not erased the feeling that Draenor emptied more quickly than expected.
That makes the timing of this announcement interesting. Blizzard is not waiting for BlizzCon and is immediately showing an expansion that appears to tick nearly every community request at once: Illidan, Demon Hunters, class stories, famous weapons, the Emerald Nightmare and a full invasion by the Burning Legion.
It is almost a suspicious amount of fan service. Fan service is not automatically bad, however, when players have spent years asking for exactly these subjects. The real question is how many of these plans will be developed deeply enough to last beyond the first few weeks.
There is no release date yet. Blizzard intends to begin beta testing later this year, and many systems currently exist mainly as presentations, screenshots and promises. We do not yet know exactly how Artifact Power will be earned, how large the Broken Isles really are or how Demon Hunters will fit beside eleven existing classes.
Blizzard has already achieved one thing, though: everyone is talking about what they want to do in World of Warcraft next. Not only about how many months the current raid tier might last or who has cancelled their subscription again, but about new characters, new weapons and an enemy that should feel larger than another argument between two factions.
The Burning Legion is returning. Illidan is waking up. And somewhere on every server, somebody is already trying to reserve the perfect Demon Hunter name.
We are clearly not prepared yet.
Sources: Blizzard: World of Warcraft: Legion Revealed, Blizzard Entertainment press release, Blizzard Watch: Legion announced.
