Perhaps the most important name for World of Warcraft players to remember is Xal’atath: the mysterious figure is associated with an all-powerful dagger and first appears prominently in connection with the Burning Legion. Now Xal’atath will also be the big character in the background of The War Within.
This is the tenth expansion, which is expected to be released for World of Warcraft in summer or fall 2024. Blizzard presented some of the add-on’s innovations in discussions with the press, and Golem.de also took part in one of these press conferences online.
The War Within consists of four major zones. It starts on the Isle of Dorn, an above-ground area with forests and the capital Dornogal, to which both the Horde and the Alliance have access.
The three other environments are located below the surface of Azeroth: First, when questing, you reach the Sounding Depths – huge caves full of ancient blacksmiths and mechanical engineering devices.
This is followed by the Heilbruch cave system, which almost looks like an above-ground environment full of light, and in which it is possible to ride flying animals. Finally, adventurers come to Azj-Kahet, a dark area and headquarters of the Nerubian forces – and of Xal’atath.
According to Blizzard, the players in The War Within will have to contend with the Nerubians the most – but Blizzard didn’t say much about the spider-like monsters.
But there is one detail: If you are afraid of spiders, you can set in the options menu that crabs of approximately the same size crawl across the screen instead. As far as we know, this feature is limited to the extension for now.
One of the more important innovations in The War Within are the so-called Delves. These are cave systems lasting around ten minutes, into which you go either with friends or as a soloist with a computer-controlled companion.
As an example, Blizzard cited the archaeologist Brann Bronzebeard, who can be configured as either a damage dealer or a healer. Then Bronzebeard either bravely attacks spiders and crab monsters or helps with health potions and the like.
WoW – The War Within: Level cap and beta access
The maximum achievable level in The War Within is 80. But even more important are new hero talent trees, in which you can make further specializations and improvements from level 70.
Blizzard presented details, but they sounded quite complicated – and since something like this is intuitively understandable in the game, we’ll just wait and see.
A fundamental change in The War Within is that World of Warcraft is run by one “character-based to account-based” Game needs to be rebuilt. This means that all characters on an account automatically share in a large part of the progression, such as achievements, fame levels and collections.
Blizzard is currently running an internal alpha of The War Within. As far as we know, players can also take part in the beta and later early access. This requires either luck after registering the website or pre-ordering the Epic Edition of The War Within.