BlizzCon 2023 Recap: Three New World Of Warcraft Expansion Announced As Part Of Larger Saga

It’s November and for Blizzard fans that means one thing… BlizzCon. Today, Blizzard kicked off the convention with quite a few announcements. Some of those are for single-player games, so we won’t be addressing them here, but there’s still plenty to cover between Overwatch 2, Hearthstone, and World of Warcraft. Especially World of Warcraft.

The keynote covered modern World of Warcraft as well as World of Warcraft Classic. Beginning with Classic, players can expect Cataclysm in the first half of 2024. As is the case with Classic expansions, this one will be modified from the original, based on player feedback.

The team also announced something a bit...spicier...titled Season of Discovery. This is Vanilla Classic WoW with a twist. When it launches on November 30, players will be able to use class-altering abilities to create things like tanking Warlocks and Mage Healers. Season of Discovery will launch with a level cap of 25. Once they hit 25 they’ll begin endgame. The level cap will be raised a few months after launch and they’ll work to endgame again. There won’t be a PTR for this, because the developers want players to discover everything together.

Moving on to Modern WoW, players can expect Dragonflight’s Guardians of the Dream in five days, with Season 3 and the last raid of the expansion kicking off a week later. The question is, “What comes after that?” The answer, it seems, is an entire saga planned out for the coming future. The World of Warcraft team has put together a story titled the Worldsoul Saga. It will last over several expansions spread out over the coming years. However, the developers are working to put each expansion out faster than players are used to.

The saga begins with the game’s next, and tenth, expansion: The War Within. This expansion, featuring the Nerubians and the Ahn’kahet, will take place within Azeroth itself, where players will explore subterranean kingdoms.

The second chapter of Worldsoul Saga, and the eleventh World of Warcraft expansion, is titled Midnight. Players return to the Old World where the forces of the Void are working to plunge the world into darkness. Players will have to unite the Elven tribes to fight against it.

The third chapter announced – although likely not the final chapter of the Saga – is the twelfth expansion, titled The Last Titan. Once again, players return to the old world, specifically Ulduar, where they will see the Titans return to Azeroth. There’s something about a vast conspiracy that apparently has something to do with that big-ass sword everyone’s been ignoring for a while now. So… Good luck with that.

As far as Overwatch 2 announcements go, a new Samoan hero named Mauga was introduced today.

Finally, Hearthstone’s fourteenth expansion, Showdown in the Badlands, takes players West. This expansion introduces a couple of new features to the game. The first is Catch-up Packs. These are packs filled with 50 cards from the last two years and are intended to help players who might be behind – or just starting – get caught up with everyone else. The other is Battlegrounds Duos, which is designed for two players to share a health pool and work together in team combat. Showdown in the Badlands drops on November 14.