As we get closer to April 19th, the day Blizzard reveals their next expansion for the hit MMORPG: World of Warcraft, it seems that some fans have been hard at work deciphering what the focus of it could be. While the current Shadowlands expansion enters its last legs and suffering from a litany of issues revolving around design, fans may have uncovered some information about the next journey titled “Dragonflight.”
Reddit user u/Superduperballs posted an image of the World of Warcraft homepage web code online which showed several instances of the word “Dragonflight” along with three iterations. These three notes may be the base game along with two special editions which seem to be inline with how Blizzard releases their expansions. This information made its way to the WoWhead forums as well.
The only catch is in my attempt to recreate this, I found no such information on the World of Warcraft site. Disabling adblocking software did not bring this up on my end. This may have been fixed between when this was posted and now.
This typically would be the end for a story such as this, but another leak showing an image of potential cover art has also made its way into the narrative also by another user u/PM_ME_YOUR_CHESTHAMS. This also aligns with previous rumors of the game that include multiple huge game-changing concepts.
Content creators Taliesin & Evitel have recently released a video detailing the potential of Dark Rangers making it into this next expansion, revealing that unused (and periodically updated) coding within the game may be used. An area called “The Dragon Isles” has been an asset within the game files since the beta of World of Warcraft, yet only used as a test zone dubbed “Designer Island” which ultimately didn’t make it into the final product.
What makes this leak a potentially huge story is how this is the first expansion without their original creative director who has since been fired by Blizzard for the cases involving sexual harassment. Johnny Cash, a Senior Game Designer, announced his decision to leave the studio after 12 years, along with others who have made the decision to depart with the company. Currently, ABK staff members are planning a walk-out due to the lift of COVID vaccination requirements as the team returns to the office. This will also be the first expansion released under the current interim President, Mike Ybarra and will run through the finalization of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.
We will know more of what this expansion is offering come April 19th.
Our Take
This is huge news for MMO players around the globe. Not only has World of Warcraft been a huge influence on the genre, but the fans as well (including myself and other Seasoned Gaming writers). As mentioned, this is the first game where the rest of the team gets to call the shots on the story, which has been so far revered as “not that great,” for a lack of better terms. Between the huge success of Final Fantasy XIV, it seems like this latest expansion has the potential to bring fans back to the game. As for the content of the expansion, we can wait and see. One thing is for sure though, all eyes are on Blizzard.
[…] announced their upcoming Dragonflight expansion for their hit MMORPG, World of Warcraft. While we have speculated in the past about what this latest update to the game could consist of, we have finally found out what is in […]