World of Warcraft: Dragonflight
Blizzard has announced that the Dragonflight expansion for World of Warcraft will receive two major content updates in 2023, as well as four minor updates throughout the year. The major updates will include a new raid, zone, and seasonal rewards, while the minor updates will focus on adding more story content, ongoing events, updates to existing game systems, and incorporating feedback from players, according to an announcement by WoW executive producer Holly Longdale.
“Your adventures in #Dragonflight are just beginning!
With six updates planned for 2023, we’re looking to deliver more content to players more often.
EP @TheWindstalker on the road ahead: https://t.co/cX93MdwEog pic.twitter.com/TQx0yNNzJt
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) December 21, 2022
Players won’t have to wait long for the first of the updates to arrive, as update 10.0.5 is set to go live “early next year” and will bring the recently announced Trading Post system, the ability to transmog poor-quality and common-quality items, and new content to the Primalist Tomorrow area. The next update, 10.0.7, will feature new story quests following the Dracthyr’s return to the Forbidden Reach to learn about their origins and future, setting up the next major story for Dragonflight. This update will also include the long-awaited Human and Orc Heritage armor quests and more. According to WoW executive producer Holly Longdale, the team aims to improve upon their track record of releasing new content for the subscription-based MMORPG, which has been lacking in recent years.
“In planning out the road ahead following the release of Dragonflight, we’ve been mindful of the duty we owe our players to nurture this living world and, frankly, the need to do better than we have at times in the recent past,” Longdale writes. “Our goal for Dragonflight is that there should always be something right around the corner, with a new update hitting our test realms shortly after the last one is live and in your hands.”
Longdale writes, “the goal is simply more Warcraft: more story, more content, more rewards, more events, more tech improvements, with less downtime between them.”
According to recent statements by Holly Longdale and the news that Chris Metzen will be returning as a creative advisor, 2023 could be a strong year for World of Warcraft as it looks to build upon the success of the Shadowlands expansion and the sparse content updates it received. The new Dragonflight expansion has received positive early reviews, with GameSpot stating that “a handful of new ideas, along with major facelifts to some old ones, breathe new life into Blizzard’s flagship title.”
