WoW’s eighth expansion shows how Blizzard has mastered its ability to create campaigns and shows some ideas for the future
With Shadowlands comes the eighth expansion of one of the most important and influential games in recent history. Very few games can boast of maintaining such an active presence with more than 15 years on, without having abandoned their original creative and technological roots. Of course WoW has evolved a lot in every way since it unleashed its storm in 2003, but it has never needed a sequel or a full stop to keep millions of players paying every month to continue enjoying their adventures in Azeroth.
This, however, is not a blank check from fans with an extremely critical and demanding core. WoW may have remained on the throne of paid MMOs as one of the few online titles that can afford to claim a monthly fee, but a glance at the persistent online gaming landscape paints a rather uncompetitive intramural scene. Of the twenty MMORPGs that appeared in 2007, to take a significant example in a year that promised to be powerful in the genre with names like Tabula Rasa, Lord of the Rings Online, or Vanguard, we have now gone to the barren lands. The names that remain at the top in terms of active players are the same as a decade ago: Final Fantasy, Runescape, WoW itself … It is not a particularly hopeful scenario for lovers of a specific way of understanding the MMORPG.
That is why when the great reference of World of Warcraft fails, fatalism takes over those fans. And the progression of Battle for Azeroth, the previous expansion, failed miserably. In fact, had it not been for the triumph of WoW Classic, in which the community itself had to drag Blizzard to convince them that it was a good idea, surely the emotional climate would be even more complicated in the face of this Shadowlands. Still there was a certain caution about what to expect, a caution that will not be abandoned given the circumstances and the very nature of the long-term progression of an expansion. But, at least we can leave some notes of positivity in what is the gateway to it with the main campaign.
In unknown terrain
For much of its existence, World of Warcraft has remained attached to its founding myths, which are not exactly its own but those of Warcraft, the RTS trilogy that forms the primordial seed of this universe. What we have done in these years of the MMO is to explore characters, elements, worlds and landscapes that come to a greater or lesser extent from RTS. Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King continued the story of The Frozen Throne; Mist of Pandaria was built on a lone hero from the same game; Legion was built on the central conflict of Warcraft III; Cataclysm confronted us with the same Deathwing we faced in Warcraft 2; Warlords of Draenor took us back to the primeval origins of the first RTS, and Battle for Azeroth delved into the original conflict between orcs and humans from the first titles that brought Blizzard to fame. They are all in some way indebted to the RTS, an influence that we find more distant in Shadowlands, where we notice that WoW begins to explore its own myths and lore as a mother element to continue building.
All the references that we find of the kingdom of souls we have them in WoW itself. There are many mentions about what hides the veil that separates the world of mortals and that of spirits, although it had never materialized in a concrete way, which is what we find here when the crown of the lich king is destroyed by Sylvannas, launching a plan that threatens the Horde and the Alliance alike. This action will take the heroes of Azeroth to explore the nucleus that regulates the transit of souls from all worlds to their final destination, one more step in that cosmology that is becoming smaller and more accessible within the Blizzard universe. Not content with making us deal with primeval dark gods, planet-conquering demons, and world-making titans, we now engage directly in the affairs of the universe as if it were our backyard (they may have readjusted our scale of level, health, and damage, but the scale of the threats we face is already at the level of Dragon Ball or almost any shonen when it has been in publication too long).
A well spun story
One of the biggest novelties that the Shadowlands campaign brings is a set of mandatory stories that will give us an idea of what we do and why. It is perhaps a bit forced at times, since it forces us to do certain missions to advance the argument and be able to visit other lands, when we are used to taking for granted a certain freedom to move or choose between alternative routes. Blizzard’s line of thinking seems to be to fit the story with the initial experience curve and ensure that all players experience it and have a logical succession of places to visit to make sense of the narrative, before leaving the doors open to leave us at ease.
This comes from the hand of the much improved cinematic techniques that the studio now employs and that allows a greater insertion of scenes using the characters and elements of the game itself. It is interesting to see how the game has evolved in this area, when at first it barely had more ingame resources than text and some rudimentary effects to generate narrative. At the same time it is not lost on us that the more resources the team puts into these tricks and the more weight is given to the historical characters that form the core of the story, the less weight our character has, who sometimes seems more like a troupe what other thing. The clash between the attempts to give importance to our actions and the fact that we are only a cog in the machinery so that Thrall, Jaina, Anduin, Sylvanas and the rest of the protagonists continue their march is permanent, but at this point it seems that that battle is more than lost and it only remains to take it as it comes.
Excellent progression
Given that in these early days we have focused on the initial experience of progression up to level 60, we can say that it has been practically flawless. A little easy maybe, but that won’t surprise any veteran at this point. The introduction of a relatively linear campaign to follow, the variety of ideas and mechanics that they have established in the missions concerned that compose it and the pace at which they advance along with the plot, new locations and character level is perfectly measured and makes the level 60 is reached in what seems like a breath as soon as we realize it. Of course, nothing prevents us from speeding up the process and reaching the maximum level in record time, but it is still necessary to go through history to reach the endgame and to be able to choose between the four houses present in the shadow lands to carry their flag and progress in them .
These houses form curiae and each one is associated with a land. Bastion is the first of them, a place of angelic calm where the purest and most detached souls go, under the rigid hierarchy of the Kyrian. Then there is Maldraxxus, a land of war, death and devastation destined for those who carry conflict in their souls and dominated by the Necroseirs. The third in contention is Ardenweald, a place of natural beauty where the souls who belong to the natural cycle of rebirth go and supervised by the Winter Queen and her nocturnal sylphs. Finishing off is Revendreth, dominated by the vampires Venthyr and home to souls that harbor evil but still have a chance at redemption before being hunted down by the lords. Once the story is complete we will have a fifth area: the Maw, where much of the endgame will take place in these first stages of the expansion.
The fact of dividing the game into thematic zones so different from each other has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand there is variety and therefore the opportunity for each player to find a place aesthetically and spiritually to their liking. The four worlds of the curia are exaggerated and intense in their primordial features, so each can encompass a wide range of players. The tranquil beauty of Bastion and its golden meadows; the rugged mountain ranges topped by ominous skull statues of Maldraxxus; the explosive lush forests of Ardenweald and the gothic appeal of Revendreth, each is an exaggerated version of archetypes with which many WoW players can feel identified, to which must be added the story / sympathy factor for the characters that We are in the campaign and to whom we will link our adventures once we reach the endgame to continue progressing.
As for the drawbacks mentioned, the fact that there is such radical diversity between zones ruins the scale somewhat. For example, Kyrian is the place where all righteous, courageous, humble and detached souls should go, not only from the entire history of Azeroth, but from all the worlds of the universe. It is therefore difficult to believe, even within the scale of the game itself, that such an emblematic place is relatively so small. It is, of course, a necessity of the script to fit the goal set for the Shadowlands, but there are times when it is difficult to maintain the suspension of credibility, even for a game like World of Warcraft and its infinite ability to mold its own lore. It is, for sure, a personal opinion of the one who writes these lines, but we cannot help but miss the expansions that were capable of creating a new unified, diverse but also reasonably coherent territory such as Icecrown or Pandaria. It is still a minor consideration with which you can agree, or not.
Endgame
In our first forays into the endgame we can say that Blizzard has found a very interesting formula to keep the player’s attention while progressively opening the highest level content. The fifth world that we will visit and where we will spend many hours is known as Las Mauces, a place of punishment for the vilest souls and where we find the main villain of Shadowlands. In it, Blizzard rehearses with two interesting formulas, delving into elements that it has already explored on occasion, but now with greater conviction. On the one hand, the jaws in a huge sandbox map in which we will be setting our own objectives while the game presents us with new challenges. Once we enter here, our presence will be felt and enemies of increasing difficulty will be thrown at us until we retreat or die. The other key element is the fortress known as Torghast, in the heart of the jaws, a dungeon with roguelike elements, full of random events, exploration and surprises, a remarkable evolution of other experiments in the same vein as the expeditions to the Battle Islands. for Azeroth, but better planned, with more confidence and resources in its design.
Path to Reviews
In order to have the best possible Reviews, we have decided to wait for the most critical and demanding content to appear, such as the start of the Mythics season, which begins on December 8, in order to have a better perspective of the journey that Shadowlands can take . Obviously it is impossible to have a complete assessment of an expansion that we will not have its measurement of until months later, but at least we will try to cover the key content of the launch window before making a final evaluation, or as much “final” as we can. Given the circumstances.
In the end, what determines the quality of a WoW expansion is how its progression is planned, the distribution of content over time, its quality and the time that passes until a new expansion without interesting content to put in your mouth. Battle for Azeroth wouldn’t be so maligned if some of those aspects hadn’t been so poorly managed, which are impossible to guess in the first few weeks unless you have a crystal ball. But in any case, in these early days we can say that Shadowlands is an expansion that does everything well, and even very well. The progression is excellent and fast, the pace is very good, the story is interesting and the endgame content is also attractive and with a journey. A good initial feeling that we hope will be confirmed in the short and medium term future.
