Back in 2022, I previewed World of Warcraft’s last expansion, Dragonflight, in a press pre-alpha situation. Though I’m always hesitant to glowingly recommend an entire MMORPG expansion based on brief early alpha storyline play and not the sum of its content, Dragonflight felt exceptional out of the gate, and was, largely thanks to the transformative new dragonriding mechanic and other major changes that shook off the dust from the widely panned Shadowlands expansion. Blizzard designed the Dragon Isles with grandeur in mind, and my very early experiences zipping around them adequately conveyed the sense of increased scale and majesty that would carry throughout the entire expansion.
Looking at The War Within’s pre-alpha by comparison, I’m not quite as enraptured. I don’t dislike it, to be clear! Largely, it just feels like more World of Warcraft, which is fine. And it’s impossible at this stage to say if my muted feelings are because of anything particularly sinful about the new expansion, or just because I’ve seen so little of it.
Earlier this week, I played roughly 90 minutes or so of story content in the first zone, the Isle of Dorn. Most of this involved a very linear, fast-paced storyline chasing some dwarf factions around to put a council together and fight a familiar Warcraftian race of evil bug people. World of Warcraft veterans will encounter nothing shocking here: kill 12 enemies, rescue six dudes, clean up rubble, find Brann Bronzebeard, blow up Nerubian nests with kegs of explosive alcohol. The usual stuff.
The Isle of Dorn story I saw played out very fast, possibly due to numerous quests that have yet to be implemented in the early alpha build. But also it might be because the surface of Dorn itself is potentially the least exciting zone of The War Within. I wish I had incentive to explore more of it on foot, honestly, as I think I would have enjoyed it more. Nerfed dragonriding (*ahem* dynamic flying) feels terrible after the robust talent trees of Dragonflight, and having it available out of the gate means I spend a lot of time zooming from town to town and almost no time happily getting lost. I don’t know, Dorn is fine I guess. It’s a greenish island with some mountains and caves and forests and dwarven architecture, and a good chunk of the space is given up to the new capital city Dornogal. All of the biggest, most exciting backdrops that Blizzard has teased for The War Within are located deep underground in Khaz Algar, the expansion’s surprising new vertical (not horizontal!) series of zones. Blizzard has mentioned a massive Titan industrial complex, an ancient Nerubian city, and a subterranean cavern lit by a massive crystal “sun.” I want to go there!
I also ran two dungeons. The Rookery was not what I would call the most enthralling display of World of Warcraft dungeoning I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t bad, it was just fine! There’s a fight where you have to jump into a pit when you get hit by lightning, and another where a big guy pops out of some water and dumps darkness all over you. But the other alpha-enabled dungeon, Cinderbrew Meadery, did a lot to assuage my worries its alcohol-soaked halls would amount to nothing more than “We have Stormstout Brewery at home.” The Meadery is full of fiery bees, wise-cracking goblins, and silly encounters that have you chucking flagons to thirsty patrons and blowing up explosive barrels. I can’t wait to see what a riot this one will be on Mythic+ difficulty.
Delves, a brand new feature, were a bit more interesting: aided by an NPC companion, you (and up to four others, if you so choose) essentially do a mini-dungeon focused on collecting treasure. Each Delve I completed made use of a unique mechanic: a kobold-themed Delve forced me to watch my steps in a health-sapping darkness so my candle wouldn’t burn out, and a Nerubian-themed Delve was covered in enemy-summoning spiderwebs. I like the principle of Delves, especially as a player who enjoys relaxing with solo exploration-focused content (and fondly remembers my Withered running away a few expansions ago!). Blizzard only offered limited options in the alpha, so the few Delves I was able to try got repetitive pretty fast, but I’m optimistic as to the possibilities once everything opens up at launch.
Finally: Hero Talents. Look. I’m not a theorycrafter or anything. But I’m not convinced just yet that they’re going to drastically transform gameplay. It’s at least a nice, simple system: level up, get talent point, put in talent tree, done. No grinds for artifact power, no corruption dice rolls, no farming Soul Ash every week. As a busy adult, that’s a huge relief. I don’t know if the long-term solution to World of Warcraft’s need for continual character growth is to keep slapping more talent trees on top of talent trees, though, so I’m curious as to what the much longer-term plans for this system are. And as someone enamored with the idea of “class fantasy,” I can’t help but long for a little more flavor for my elemental shaman. Sure, it’s neat to summon little ghosties by using my most powerful spell, but is there more to it than just powering those ghosts up? Is this the upgrade I’m stuck with for the next two years? Will the Totemic path be totally different and let me do some cool totem dropping style of play? There are still loads of questions we won’t see answered until later in the alpha or even the beta. Patience.
I probably sound a little down on The War Within, but I really do think most of my hesitation comes from how immediately stunning Dragonflight was in 2022, and how little I’ve seen of The War Within so far. I’ll leave this preview with two optimistic thoughts. First: we didn’t get to see the introductory scenario to The War Within, but based on the aftermath I started in (which I won’t spoil, but you can see in the preview video if you look closely), the inciting incident of this expansion is mad bonkers and has some wild implications, so I’m very, very interested to see where they take it.
Second: toward the end of my demo, a quest seemed to suggest I needed to descend into Khaz Algar to proceed, so I dove down on my dragon into the Coreway tunnels. A barrier prevented me from going further into the next zone, but I got the briefest taste of the sheer depth we’re dealing with here, and it genuinely got my heart beating faster! I was momentarily reminded of Zaralek Caverns from Dragonflight, but the sheer depth I was zooming into gave me an overwhelming sense that the whole thing was about to open up into something huge. What that hugeness was, I never saw. But I love the idea of a vertical continent, and it makes me hopeful Blizzard has some neat ideas to give both Khaz Algar and The War Within more depth than I saw from the surface.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.