We described World of Warcraft: Dragonflight as “a promising new base for a very old MMO” in our recent 80% review (opens in new tab), and Blizzard seems to see it the same way. In a “Dragon Flight in 2023 (opens in new tab)update outlining plans for Dragonflight next year, the studio said older expansions like Legion are still “lovingly remembered” by fans, acknowledging that it hasn’t lived up to that standard with more recent releases.
Blizzard plans to release six content patches for Dragonflight in 2023, including two major updates with new zones, raids, and seasonal rewards. However, it also aims to provide plenty of new content between those big updates, including new world events, dungeons, narrative chapters, and cutscenes.
“A WoW expansion isn’t a single moment in time, it’s a journey – we know that the merit of an expansion depends on the sustained quality of the entire arc,” said executive producer Holly Longdale. “Years after its release, Legion is fondly remembered for the 11-week cadence of content updates that framed its first year, as well as artifact weapons or Khadgar’s brilliant dad jokes.
“In planning the road ahead after the release of Dragonflight, we have been mindful of the duty we owe our players to nurture this living world and, quite frankly, the need to do better than we’ve sometimes done in the recent past. Our goal for Dragonflight is that there should always be something just around the corner, with a new update hitting our test worlds shortly after the last one is live and in your hands.”
An update adding the Trading Post to Dragonflight is expected to go live in early 2023, with the next update, featuring a new mission campaign and repeatable world content, launching on the PTR shortly thereafter. That will set up Dragonflight’s next big chapter, “and by the conclusion it should be clear what our next destination should be.”
This is what the roadmap now looks like:
Of course, not everything is set in stone at this point: Longdale said there will be content updates in the second half of 2023 to bridge the big updates, but isn’t committing to specific details just yet.
“The goal is just more Warcraft: more story, more content, more rewards, more events, more technical improvements, with less downtime in between,” Longdale said. “I don’t want to spoil everything, and I’m convinced that there are at least a few surprises ahead that no one expects. And some details are just not decided yet, because your feedback helps shape exactly what we’re prioritizing in these updates.”
For those curious about Dragonflight but not quite ready to commit, Blizzard also announced today that a trial version of the expansion (opens in new tab) is now available to all World of Warcraft players with a subscription or active Game Time on their account. But only for a limited time: Dragonflight’s trial will run until January 2, 2023, after which players will need to purchase the expansion to continue playing.
