impressions of WoW expansions this early on mean very little overall because what really matters is the long term support and patch cadence, but as it stands I'm actually having fun at every turn and cannot put it down which is simply something I could not say for the last two expansions whatsoever. It's easily the best since Legion and even then there's many aspects of this in its current state that completely outpace even that so far.

The Art team never misses a beat where WoW is concerned, but everything else has finally risen to meet the phenomenal quality of their work for the first time in years. Zone layouts are leaps and bounds above their Shadowlands counterparts thanks to everything being built around dragonriding which is itself one of the most compelling new features to date. The open world content is so vastly improved and legitimately engaging it hardly even feels like the same game, and the profession overhaul is an absolute delight. Narratively things are infinitely more interesting as well down to completely inconsequential side quests having more flavor than entire previous campaign chapters.

As apprehensive as I've been given the state of the game in recent years as well as the completely reprehensible garbage fire that is Blizzard as a company it's honestly just nice to see a game you used to love living up to its true potential again. There's a ton of promise across each and every inch of the Dragon Isles and if the consistency is there throughout the full expansion cycle it'll be a tremendous step in the right direction.

Reviewed on Dec 07, 2022


Comments