Blizzard’s World of Warcraft is still by far the world’s largest MMORPG, even though subscription numbers have been dropping (WoW has dropped down to 5.6 million players, down from 7.1 million players earlier this year.) The publisher has, of course, been planning something for the world of Azeroth to turn this around, and the news just dropped.
This morning at the massive Gamescom consumer game show in Germany, Blizzard revealed the latest expansion in the series, titled Legion. In it, players will find themselves fighting against the Burning Legion and its horde, as Azeroth falls into dark hands. The trailer for the expansion is below.
Blizzard has implemented a number of new features that they hope will build its audience back up, including a level cap increase to 110 (up from 100), a new Demon Hunter hero class with new characters to play, and the ability to put together grounds in class halls. In addition, new iconic artifact weapons will be on hand, including the Doomhammer and the Ashbringer. Finally, a new continent, the Broken Isles, will also be included.
So far, the responses to Legion‘s announcement have been mostly positive on social networks. Jenna Busch, a writer for the website Legion of Leia, stated on Twitter, “Had to get @GoReadSomething to write this because TOO EXCITED TO TYPE!” Joel Martin, a developer for Robot Entertainment, added, “Oh. My. Lord. This looks amazing. DEMON HUNTER!!! @warcraft’s new expansion: Legion!!!” And Pixel, a video game fan from Australia, noted the following tweet:
It appears that the biggest item for fans is the addition of a Demon Hunter class, although other things, like the level cap increase and the new PvP mode, are huge draws as well. The only question is what the expansion will do for increasing the audience base once it’s released.
Legion doesn’t have a release date, but a beta for it is expected to release later this year.
