WoW: The War Within Is More Of The Same, But That's Not A Bad Thing

After two disappointing expansions in a row, World of Warcraft’s 2022 Dragonflight expansion righted the ship with its back-to-basics approach and focus on evergreen features. The numbers, as they say, don’t lie, and Blizzard has reported increased player retention and recovering subscription numbers over the last two years, thanks not only to Dragonflight but a steady stream of new content and events that have kept players coming back for more.

It’s not surprising then that the long-running MMORPG’s next expansion, The War Within, is looking to continue that trajectory, and from my hands-on time playing the expansion’s alpha, it succeeds in that goal. Like Dragonflight, The War Within puts more of an emphasis on game-wide features that will outlive the expansion’s lifespan. It’s a smart move in the long run, but as a result, aside from the usual WoW expansion additions like new zones, a new playable allied race (in this case, the stone-dwarf Earthen), and new dungeons, The War Within’s list of new features, much like Dragonflight before it, is relatively small.

Warbands open account-wide progression

Dragonflight proved to be a great reset the game desperately needed, and more of that, alongside a few new bells and whistles, certainly seems like a recipe for continued success. The War Within adds a new form of endgame content designed for solo players or small groups, a new PvP battleground, and a few more talents for each class to play around with, but it does, for the most part, feel like more of the same. It even carries forward Dragonflight’s best addition, dragonriding, which now works with the vast majority of the MMO’s hundreds of mounts and has been rebranded as dynamic flight. That The War Within and Dragonflight feel so similar isn’t a bad thing, but it does say something when the expansion’s most exciting new feature is Warbands, which enables account-wide progression across multiple characters after years of players begging for such a feature.

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