Blizzard just wrapped up its World of Warcraft What’s Next panel, and believe it or not, it wasn’t a total dud.
While we already knew quite a bit of what was coming in 8.1 Tides of Vengeance – like improvements to Azerite armor and the account-wide reputation QOL tweaks – we didn’t have a date. Now we do: December 11th, trickling out around the world in the few days following that. The raid, note, won’t be out until after the new year.
The 8.1.5 “dot five” update will include updates for holidays (including Children’s Week), new portal rooms in the key cities, new crafting questlines, graphical upgrades for battlegrounds, PvP brawls (players vs. AI), and the expected Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran Humans as allied races; the class combos were posted on the official site before the panel. Notably, the panel shows off all the mounts and druid forms!
Gnomes and goblins are getting some updated models too.
The reveals for 8.2 were probably among the best: That patch, which does not have a release window yet, is called Rise of Azshara and will prominently feature the Naga; players will storm Nazjatar and assault Azshara’s Palace, the headline raid, and its eight bosses. But that’s not all! The other big dungeon is Mechagon, which is a Mythic-only “megadungeon” featuring mechagnome enemies in a sprawling format likened to Karazhan.
Blizzard also teased heritage armor for gnomes and tauren, more island expeditions (including Crestfall and Snowblossom), heroic warfronts, and of course, the return of flying.
Don’t miss the new trailer and WoW Classic details dropped during the opening ceremonies; the new Terror of Darkshore cinematic is below.
