After the very controversial Shadowlands, players did not really know what to expect from the next World of Warcraft expansion Dragonflight. Some were worried that it would continue the pitfalls of its predecessors, and that the glory days of World of Warcraft were long gone. However, it seems like Blizzard had very different plans. The newest expansion has gone back to the basics, told a story heavily ingrained in classic Warcraft lore, and has stripped out much of the systems that had plagued the previous expansions.
The direction that Blizzard chose to take World of Warcraft with Dragonflight has been a breath of fresh air. It feels like a return to form for the 19-year-old MMO, and the future seems very bright. Not content with just revitalizing the game, Blizzard has also committed to a very consistent update schedule that will see a year full of brand-new content. For the first time in World of Warcraft history, everything coming to World of Warcraft in 2023 has been laid out for players, and hopefully this roadmap is a sign of things to come from the studio.
Dragonflight's Roadmap Gives Players Some Much-Needed Transparency
Since World of Warcraft is an MMO, it has seen a plethora of content updates over the years. The only way to keep a game alive this long is by giving players a reason to keep coming back. Blizzard has done this through nine major WoW expansions filled with smaller scale updates throughout their respective tenures. An expansion tends to last around two years, and these expansions will live or die depending upon the amount of content that Blizzard pours into them. Some feel like they were cut short, some have patches that go on for a bit too long, and some just have a general lack of engaging content.
Throughout each expansion, players have mostly been left guessing about when the next update will roll around. Sometimes it only takes a couple of months, and sometimes it can take more than a year before new content arrives. This inconsistent content cycle can often hurt the game as it only survives because of the amount of content that Blizzard pumps into it. There has never been a laid out plan, and players never really knew what to expect when a new expansion released. Even the best looking WoW expansions could crash and burn if Blizzard took too long releasing new content.
It seems like Blizzard wants to change that with World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, and hopefully this continues to be a trend going forward. For the first time ever, the studio has unveiled its full 2023 plans with a roadmap. This means that players know exactly how many patches will launch this year, what they will include, and when they can expect them. While the specifics of each patch are still shrouded in mystery, players can expect six different patches before 2023 ends with patch 10.0.5 already here and WoW 10.0.7 looming on the horizon.
This roadmap gives players a new level of transparency around what is going on with the MMO. It is a nice change of pace from previous expansions, and really helps set Dragonflight up as a strong expansion after two very controversial ones. The roadmap is only as good as the content that it is advertising, but so far the content has also been pretty strong. Players have loved flying through the skies of the Dragon Isles, additions like the Trading Post have finally given the game a form of evergreen content, and the story has not been half-bad either.
Blizzard apparently has plans for even more roadmaps for its biggest games, and hopefully that carries over to 2024. If the studio continues to churn out consistent content like this then Dragonflight could quickly become one of the best expansions to date, and it could put World of Warcraft back on the map. Only time will tell if Blizzard continues down this path, but it would probably be better for all its games if this approach became the new norm.
World of Warcraft is available now on PC.