World of Warcraft: The War Within has a lot to live up to. The first in a trilogy of expansions Blizzard has dubbed The Worldsoul Saga and the followup to the stellar previous expansion in Dragonflight, it’s easy to imagine it crumbling under lofty expectations. Luckily, however, The War Within builds wonderfully on the best aspects of its predecessors while adding worthwhile new ways to play, even if it plays it a bit safe while building the foundation of what is billed as the biggest story in the game’s twenty-year history.
The War Within doesn’t mess around in its opening moments. Following a warning from the soul of the planet Azeroth herself, we find ourselves in imminent conflict with the menacing void known as Xal’atath. This harbinger of the void is puppeteering various factions throughout Khaz Algar, the expansion’s new continent. Like the best WoW villains, Xal’atath shows up in each zone of the expansion, making her feel dangerous as she schemes and manipulates vulnerable minds to achieve her dark aspirations.
I love how The War Within succeeds in introducing entirely new factions, fleshing them out, and tying them to the sprawling established lore in very cool ways. The first group we meet are the Titan-forged proto-dwarves known as the Earthen. Protectors of The Isle of Dorn, on which we’ve disastrously crashed, the Earthen become our central allies throughout the expansion. Because they follow ancient edicts, we outsiders aren’t exactly welcome, but out of necessity, we have to wedge our way into their strict society. Our interference causes many Earthen to struggle between adhering to the ancient edicts they are programmed to follow and adapting and embracing the potential new allies who have crash-landed on their doorstep. From there, we travel underground, where the rest of the expansion resides.
Khaz Algar is expertly crafted, and something unlike Blizzard has created before. Sure, World of Warcraft has had underground zones in the past, but nothing as vast and as interesting as what’s been created for The War Within. The Isle of Dorn and the zones beneath feel like a cohesive place that exists naturally, rather than a handful of disparate biomes that happen to border one another. And with the return of Dragonflight’s excellent Dragonriding mechanic, now known as Skyriding, which has been expanded to just about everywhere in the game, you can explore these new zones (as well as familiar ones) in the best way possible. It’s a blast navigating The War Within’s areas on dragonback, or whichever flying mount you’d like, soaring down the cavern in the center of the Earthen city of Dornogal down to the Ringing Deeps, taking a sharp left into the radiant Hallowfall next door, and continuing into the depths of Azj-Kahet where the creepy crawly Nerubians reside.
My favorite of these zones is the hauntingly beautiful Hallowfall, which, despite being deep below the surface, is unexpectedly open and bright. A mysterious crystal protrudes from its ceiling, illuminating the area like a surrogate sun. Despite being deep below the surface, Hallowfall is unexpectedly open and bright. Here, we meet the Arathi, a faction making its debut in The War Within. While they come from the other side of the globe, they share ties to the humans and elves from our hemisphere of Azeroth. Stranded for years after being teleported to Hallowfall, the Arathi are in a constant struggle to keep their holy fires burning and, in so doing, to keep the insect-like Nerubian invaders from even deeper below at bay. On top of that, the large shining shard in the sky keeps shifting to an ominous void-y glow, empowering the evil hordes flooding from the darkness. With its impeccable art direction, fascinating story, and lore implications, Hallowfall is instantly iconic and easily my favorite zone Blizzard has created in years.
The War Within’s story expands the existing Warcraft mythos in meaningful ways, and there’s plenty to look forward to regarding long-running storylines with characters like Anduin Wrynn and Magi Bronzebeard. Unfortunately, without getting into specifics, some of the more powerful story beats often pull their punches, defanging the situations in which characters find themselves. I’d be much more invested in the coming patches and the next expansion if some of these moments didn’t cheapen the threat Xal’atath truly poses to our heroes throughout the mainline quests.
The War Within’s main narrative questline can be breezed through much faster than those in previous expansions, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to do and see. Each zone only has about three central questlines that get to the meat of The War Within, but the abundance of side quests adds wonderful detail to the outlines the main story lays down. Some of the most interesting quests and storylines are found off the beaten path, and I’m happy I took the time to play through them. For instance, after being saved by a new race called the Harronir that seems to be the missing link between Night Elves and Dark Trolls, you’ll be rewarded with a cool series of quests that involve corrupting yourself with blood from an Old God to fight Eldritch horror hallucinations, but only if you make an effort to seek them out. Much of the expansion’s best stuff is in its side content, and it shouldn’t be skipped if you’re a sucker for some of that sweet, sweet lore.
Outside of the story, The War Within introduces a handful of great new features. First, in lieu of expanding the existing talent trees that were re-established in Dragonflight, it brings us Hero Talents. Taking inspiration from the class artifact weapons from Legion, Hero Talents provide you with new choices about how to play your character, which pays off in spades in enhancing and realizing class identity. Each class has a handful of Hero Talent paths to choose from, with two accessible paths available for each specialization. While leveling my Protection Paladin, I initially took on the talents of the Lightsmith, allowing me to imbue my weapon and armor with the power of the holy light while spreading those benefits to my allies. Alternatively, I could choose the Templar route, giving me access to more holy hammers to drop from the sky to melt my foes. Either way, I feel like I’m playing a different type of Protection Paladin than ever before and both ooze flavor.
While it officially rolled into the game earlier this year, The War Within is the first expansion in which Follower Dungeons are available throughout the leveling experience. Instead of having to wait in a dungeon queue or having to deal with random people who you may not vibe with, Follower Dungeons team you up with NPCs to fill the missing roles in your party and let you play through a given dungeon at your own pace. Conceptually, it’s a wonderful addition to the game, especially for new players still learning the ropes and their roles in a group. Even someone like myself, who has hundreds of hours in the game, finds it to be a very useful tool to ease myself into learning how to tank without the social pressures of impatient teammates.
Also leaning into solo and small group play is a new activity called Delves. Reworking the blueprint of Torghast, a roguelike tower from back in Shadowlands, Delves have so far fixed my biggest gripes of its previous iteration, which were often time-consuming when running alone and frustratingly mandatory to progress in collecting gear in the end game. Instead, Delves offer a succinct optional activity that doesn’t eat up a significant chunk of time to complete but are still a viable way to collect powerful loot.
Delves can be found in a variety of locations, with each serving a handful of objectives that alternate upon each entry, giving some much-needed variety to what something like Torghast once offered. In this first season of Delves, you’re joined by WoW’s ambitious and prolific adventurer, Brann Bronzebeard. Brann levels up throughout Delve runs and can be equipped with various abilities to support your playstyle best. I haven’t really had any issues with Brann pulling his weight in our brief partnership, although I also haven’t had much of a problem completing Delves to begin with. Only three levels of difficulty were available at the time of this review, none of which were all that hard to work through. At worst Delves have been a little boring, but I see the promise of the concept, and expect them to pick up when I can grind my way up the difficulty ladder when they’re implemented.
Finally, Warbands are a new feature with The War Within, but they’re a little more nebulous of a concept than Delves and Hero Talents. However, they are no less important and exciting for the long-term health of World of Warcraft. Warbands is Blizzard’s way of tearing down walls between the characters you have on your account. Combined with a reworked character select screen, Warbands let you share things like bank space, collected gear transmogs, currency, achievements, quest progression, and faction reputation across all of your characters. No more having to grind the same content again and again on alts if you don’t want to. It was liberating switching to my Mage after completing The War Within’s main story and skipping it entirely, not having to relive those exact moments yet again a few short hours after experiencing them and letting me level in whatever way I see fit. While it’s certainly not the flashiest thing Blizzard has put in the game, I’m thankful for the huge quality-of-life improvements Warbands have already afforded me.
I can confidently say WoW is back. Well, it was back in Dragonflight, but it’s extra back now. Not only does The War Within make the player experience better with great additions like Warbands and Follower Dungeons, but it also demonstrates that Blizzard isn’t afraid to keep refining good ideas like Hero Talents or reworking those that may have failed previously and molded them into nuggets of fun and flavor like Delves. If this is just the start of what to expect with Warcraft in the era of The Worldsoul Saga, then I’m eager to stick around and see where these new adventures on Azeroth take us next.
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