WoW dev confirms Season of Discovery Nightmare Incursions are changing in final phase

James Lynch
A Nightmare Incursion portal in Season of Discovery

Season of Discovery has been one of the more memorable World of Warcraft experiences ever, and the game is going to enter its final phase soon. As part of that, one senior developer has confirmed that Nightmare Incursions will be changing.

Senior Game Producer Josh Greenfield has been answering players’ questions on Twitter/X as part of further collaboration with the community via the PTR for Season of Discovery. Among those responses were several indicators of the development team’s direction for Nightmare Incursions in Season of Discovery’s fourth phase.

An initial post explained that there will be no “new” incursions in the final phase.

In addition, Greenfield confirmed that major changes to existing Incursions are on the way. Specifically, Incursion “loops” as they are now will no longer be a thing, though he didn’t go as far as detailing what exactly they will look like.

Nightmare Incursions are the latest world event to be added to Season of Discovery. In the first two phases, the world events were heavily PvP-focused. Incursions pivoted away from this, tasking players with completing quests around portals in Azeroth, before taking on Emerald Dragon World Bosses.

Unfortunately, feedback on Nightmare Incursions has been decidedly negative. The event is also considerably less popular than both the Battle for Ashenvale and Blood Moon activities. Much of the criticism centers on what many perceive as a boring gameplay loop and needless grinding.

The event is still not instanced, and it quickly emerged that balancing within it was difficult to manage. Changes have been minimal, and the general mood surrounding Incursions has not improved.

With the game’s final phase, Season of Discovery players will have more to do than ever before. Traditional 40-man raids will take center stage, alongside a redesigned Molten Core designed as a raid/dungeon hybrid.