WoW The War Within Review: Blizzard Hits the Mark

WoW: The War Within brings yet another threat to Azeroth, and the player character—often called the Champion—has to work with NPCs to neutralize it. However, the story isn’t what tends to make new content good or bad in WoW. So, after 20 years and 10 expansions, WoW: The War Within brings the game back into a good spot in terms of both content and gameplay.

The War Within Has Plenty of Technical Issues

Starting with the launch and technical side of gameplay, the first few days were full of lag and rather clunky. At this point, it’s expected that online games have some amount of lag at launch. I think that having an Early Access period for some players helped reduce the issues to an extent, because the beginning areas weren’t as full as they would normally be. Some players were already further into the content, so that probably helped the first area run a bit smoother.

Aside from the server lag, multiple quests and items are bugged in The War Within. In a lot of cases, this prevents you from being able to complete quests or earn achievements, such as the treasure hunting achievements. Naturally, this is frustrating to deal with. However, it’s not exactly unexpected. WoW expansions tend to be filled with bugs, just like large patches. For the most part, the game is still playable. The main campaign can be done with just reloading the ui to fix issues, so that’s a big plus. I hope these issues will be fixed soon, but the core parts of the game function, at least.

Xal’atath Drives a Story That’s Better Than It’s Been in Years

As the primary antagonist of The War Within, Xal’atath is the driving factor for the expansion’s story. She’s exactly the villain the game needed. I haven’t been this interested in a WoW story since Wrath of the Lich King, and that was 16 years ago. Helping with this is the presence of characters like Alleria, and the absence of forced conflict between the Horde and Alliance. While the battle between factions worked in the early days of the game, we’ve worked together so many times now. It’s ridiculous to keep going back to faction conflict, so I’m happy with TWW making us work together against a shared enemy.

Xal’atath works extremely well as a villain. She’s an ancient entity who was sealed in a blade for a long time. Now, she’s free and she wants to restore the Black Empire, and be the Harbinger of destruction for Azeroth. Ancient creatures tend to be more threatening in WoW than villains like Garrosh. Xal’atath has experience being evil, and she’s unapologetic about it. Throughout the campaign, she tempts Alleria to embrace the Void within her. I assume this would basically shift her to Xal’atath’s side, and she comes dangerously close multiple times to falling into Xal’atath’s hands.

Campaign Quests Have Been Streamlined

Previously, the campaign section of each zone would be rather long. The cause of this was that a lot of extra quests were part of the main campaign, even if they didn’t add to the storyline and instead focused on teaching you about the area itself or the people living there.

TWW changes that formula for the better. A lot of those extra quests are now side quests. As a result, you’re able to pick which location you want to do more quests in. The downside is that the first section of the main campaign alone won’t get you to Level 80. I got to Level 77 from it, then had to do side and world quests to reach 80 and continue to the next section.

Overall, I think this is a better set-up for questing. I like having more freedom over which zones I spend the most time in. While working towards 80, I spent my time in Hallowfall, which I consider the best new zone created by Blizzard in well over a decade. The Arathi are interesting, and there’s an area where the quests you can do are based on which flames are lit. When you’re there, you really feel the struggle of the Arathi as they simply try to survive.

Dungeons Struggle to Blend Mechanics and Difficulty

First, I found the mechanics to be in a decent place when I was doing dungeons. They’re fun, but not too much at once, which can be overwhelming. The length of the new dungeons is also in a good spot. They go fast enough that it doesn’t feel like a huge time commitment, which has definitely been the case for other dungeons throughout the game’s lifetime.

On the other hand, the new dungeons feel too easy, even on heroic difficulty. With the existence of Mythic+, this isn’t horrible. However, it does feel like a struggle to use mechanics that are interesting and not overwhelming, and then also keep the dungeon from being too easy. I don’t think the dungeons are in a bad state as they are, but I’d love a bit more of a challenge even in normal and heroic.

World of Warcraft: The War Within—The Bottom Line

Pros

• Great story and characters
• Fun dungeons
• New zones are beautifully designed

Cons

• Server disconnections and lag
• Technical issues preventing some quests and achievements from being completed

In the end, The War Within is the expansion that WoW needed. It finally feels like Blizzard is starting to listen to their players. If you used to be a player and enjoyed the first expansions, I recommend giving this latest addition a try. After years of lackluster content, I’m overjoyed that what was once one of my favorite games has been returned to a state where playing is fun again.