World of Warcraft: The War Within is in its home stretch, as Blizzard starts prepping for the next step in its trio of announced expansions, Midnight. Arriving August 5, Ghosts of K’aresh will very, very likely be the last major content update before the expansion hits.
While the official blog doesn’t state this, all signs point towards it. Blizzard’s already stated it’s doing slightly shorter, content-dense expansions, we know Midnight’ll be getting revealed before the summer’s over. This patch is also explicitly the end of The War Within’s story—referred to directly as a climax.
Dragonflight was four seasons long, but it still had three raids and three major zones—with its fourth season being a rehash of content released throughout the expansion, a stopgap that keeps players getting new rewards while also giving the devs a breather.
Basically, unless Blizzard changes its entire game plan (and why would it, it’s been working out fine so far, except for a couple hiccups) it’s the last major one. If it isn’t, I’ll eat my four strength, four stam, leather belt. Mind, there’ll still be pre-expansion events, story quests, and the like. As for now? We’re going to the void, baby.
Or, well. A void-touched world—which is like the void’s holiday home. K’aresh is the original homeworld of the Ethereals, before Dimensius rocked up and messed everything up for everyone. Some mad lads have had the bright idea to try and bring him back, so we’ll have to stop them:
“With shadowy forces working toward bringing Dimensius back into the world, players will need to gather their allies in a bid to put a stop to him and his followers. You’ll fight alongside Alleria Windrunner and her mentor Locus-Walker among others to end the clear and present danger he poses.”
This’ll also include a new hub from Shadowlands, of all places. Say what you want about Blizzard, I respect its determination to not simply toss out one of their worst-received expansions. Tazavesh, the Veiled Market is back, plucked from narrative obsolescence and plonked onto K’aresh.
While there, you’ll also be able to do something called “phase diving”—taking a jaunt into a mirror dimension with a bunch of goodies in it. Goodies you’ll need to upgrade your Reshii Wraps, an artefact cloak that’ll be part of the patches’ progression system.
Players will also be sprucing up the place a bit with eco-domes: “Help Ve’nari bring life back to K’aresh with her eco-domes. You’ll help fill them with creatures that thrive within the ecosystem. You’ll scour previously traveled zones to bring back animals to live within the eco-domes and aid them in adjusting to life on K’aresh.”
It seems a little mean to go snag some perfectly happy animals and drop them into a reserve on hell (note: void) planet, but hey. Maybe they’ll be rescues. Other than that, it’s the usual suspects—a new delve, a new raid and dungeon (coming August 12), and more quests to wrap up The War Within’s story. I’ll be keen to see if Blizzard sticks the first landing in its ambitious triple backflip, and if not? Hey, player housing still looks pretty good.