WoW: The War Within devs on The Worldsoul Saga, class design & the future of the game

❘ Published: 2024-08-30T15:53:13

Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft: The War Within is finally out in the wild, allowing the community to take its first collective steps into Khaz Algar and beyond as they seek to address the existential threat posed by new antagonist Xal’atath. Tentatively, things are looking very good.

As with any expansion, The War Within introduces a ton of new features that seek to bring the game into its next phase. Many of those features have been well-received in their earliest throes, from Delves to Hero Talents to the new open world zones.

Additionally, the changes to the existing pantheon of features and mechanics from Dragonflight all seem to be working well enough. What’s left at the end of all of that is a sense of hope for the future of WoW as a whole.

We sat down with The War Within’s Senior Game Producer, George Velev, and Production Director, Michael Bybee, to discuss all of that and more.

The War Within as a first step

Blizzcon 2023 was a bit of a watershed moment for World of Warcraft. As Chris Metzen took the stage to announce that The War Within would be the first expansion in a three-part series known as The Worldsoul Saga, it was clear that WoW was about to change things up significantly.

Though Dragonflight did a brilliant job of stopping the rot that culminated in the bleak times that defined Shadowlands, there was still plenty of work to do. Despite outward appearances, Velev confirmed that this bold new direction did not change things as significantly for the dev team.

“I think there’s a couple of things here that are pretty interesting. One is, in general, we’ve actually worked a couple of expansions ahead, and that’s been a normal part of our process generally. The change here comes because [historically] we haven’t been able to talk about the future,” he said.

“It actually makes it really hard to have conversations with the community around, ‘hey, this is a longer storyline. You should stay tuned because we’re going to build to something greater.’ It’s mostly, ‘Here’s this storyline and who knows what’s coming next.’ This time, just being able to talk about that has been great.

“That becomes a feedback loop for the team, where they hear how people get excited about stuff in the future and think, well, ‘maybe there’s a way we can start some of that sooner. Maybe we can change some of our plans because people are more excited about that,’ which is really interesting.

“It’s been great to get people’s opinions on how things are going because people know the general flow, so let’s just pivot earlier if we need to.”

What exactly that closer collaboration with the community will look like as the expansion progresses is unclear, but it’s difficult to argue that it was a positive during the Alpha and Beta periods. The way the expansion was shaped during that time has led to a remarkable sense of cohesion from the player base at large.

Delving into the new expansion

Entrance to a Delve in The War Within World of Warcraft.

As mentioned earlier, one of the big new features in The War Within is Delves. These are instanced PvE scenarios that can be run either solo or as a group, where the player takes on the threats of this new world alongside a seasonal NPC companion.

The developer has invested a lot of proverbial currency into making this an important part of the expansion. Delves and other world content have replaced PvP as part of the Great Vault rewards offering, and it’s clear that they are designed to be more than a fun aside.

Velev explained exactly how the dev team has approached Delves and what purpose they are designed to serve in the wider play rotation for the community, “Personally, I think of Delves as an expansion of the open world content. So, things like quests and World Quests taken to the nth degree.

“I would hope players that want to do open-world content take Delves for a spin. It’s more bite-sized, it’s more playable. If you need to get up for two or three minutes to do something in the middle of a Delve, that’s totally fine. You can take it at your own pace. These are just things that you can do by yourself that also have a level of progression.”

Despite that relaxed overall purpose, there is an element to this that leans into the prestige. Those who have played beyond level 4 will have encountered enemies empowered by Zekvir’s Influence. Zekvir is Xal’atath’s right hand, and his lair is set to serve as a 13th Delve, which will be released after Season 1 arrives.

Michael Bybee detailed precisely what players can expect when that drops, saying, “I think the best way to describe it is that it is a very challenging encounter for people who really want to push themselves in that particular direction, right? I’ve heard people describe it as similar-ish to the Mage Tower and that’s not exactly true, but it’s intended to be for those people who really want to challenge and want to push themselves in an experience here. It’s the ability to do that.”

Heroes should be talented

One of the headline features of the expansion outside of the new activities is Hero Talents. These new trees are designed to complement existing specs and add further class fantasy, as well as some fresh playstyles and additional power.

Unlike the borrowed powers of old, Hero Talents are very clearly designed to be evergreen, advancing beyond the end of the current expansion. As such, there have been some fears that this additional complexity could become very convoluted further down the line.

We asked exactly what the plan is for Hero Talents over the next few expansions, particularly with regard to balancing, and what the developer’s intention is for the new system overall.

Velev explained, “We definitely talked a lot about that. Hero talents are part of your spec and class going forward and much like how we treat like specs or classes underperforming, we will look at Hero Talents underperforming.

“Much like we do updates for classes and specs that need major and minor content updates, we’ll do the same thing for Hero Talents. I would say, as a whole, we would treat them as part of your character going forward. If something’s underperforming or overperforming, we would adjust it.”

“We’re also very conscious of the fact that some players may find the current talent tree a little bit too complicated. One of our goals with Hero Talents is, since you have two options, maybe we can make one that’s a little bit more passive for players who don’t really want to opt into a lot of complexity. The other option is a bit specific to players who want to explore more, deeper gameplay styles.

“That was one thing we tried to accomplish, one simpler and one a little bit more complicated. It’s hard to do that across the board since there are 39 of these, but that was one of the goals. Many of these have choice nodes where you can opt in or out of complexity. So if there’s something that feels a little bit too complex for players, there should be a node on it that makes it a little simpler and vice versa.”

Additionally, there have been some concerns amongst the community that the Hero Talents can be a little too prescriptive in the way they want players to play the spec. Velev explained that, with all of the options on the table, the dev team isn’t necessarily against some trees being highly specialized.

“Yes, so Aldrachi Reaver definitely focuses on glaives. I think there are talents you will feel you should take with Aldrachi Reaver, and that’s fine. There’s Voidweaver, where you need Void Torrent in general, and there are talents that buff Void Torrent for Shadow Priest that you probably want to take. We’re okay with that. That’s totally fine.

“What we don’t want to do is have one very rigid talent tree for every single Hero Talent. We’re okay with certain talents feeling required, but the entire tree shouldn’t.”

The future of classes and specs in World of Warcraft

The arrival of Augmentation Evoker onto the scene was a pretty spectacular one, as WoW players got their first look at what exactly a true “support” spec might look like. The addition of Hero Talents and utility adds to the plausibility of this role across the board, so we sought clarity on whether Augmentation is simply the first step of many.

“We took a pretty large leap with that initially with the Oracle Priest way back in December or January, just to see what if there was a Hero Talent that pushed you more towards support,” Velev explained.

“We got a bunch of great feedback and we ended up not going in that direction, mostly because players wanted to stay focused on their role. So, for the most part, Hero Talents won’t be changing you from a Healer to a Support spec.

“There are some that slightly dip your toe into the support space, like Farseer a little bit and Lightsmith a little bit more than that. But even then, if you’re a Lightsmith and you play Holy Paladin, you’re still playing a healer. It’s not going to change your role fundamentally. That’s one of our goals as well. Keep them playing the same role that they’re currently playing.”

Additionally, the way classes are set up now specifically has the community as a whole in mind. There are more ways to play WoW than ever and, as a result, more types of player than ever before as well. Giving players the tools they need to play how they want is paramount, as Bybee explains.

“With the introduction of things like Delves, where a lot more players are going to be doing solo content, the way we structured our Hero Talent entries was that we wanted to have at least one node that was just purely defensive across the board. That way, you don’t feel like you need to play, Farseer instead of Totemic because Totemic didn’t have a defensive node. That was one part of it.

“Same with utility. Each of them has one utility node. Just make sure things are equal across the board, but, for the most part, a lot of that stuff was to focus on content like that. We’re going to be playing solo, and we want to make sure that they have the tools to succeed and keep themselves alive. That was definitely a part of it, but it was more of an extension [of the existing design philosophy] than anything else.”

Whatever happens next, there’s a lot more WoW to come

Over the last year, WoW has been defined by highly experimental game modes set in Azeroth. Plunderstorm saw players taking part in a high-octane Battle Royale, while WoW Remix allowed players to return to Pandaria in search of loot and, above all else, fun.

As Bybee explains, these are unlikely to be the last forays into the unknown, with more on the way to fill any potential gaps in the content. Though he wouldn’t be drawn on what exactly these will look like, there will be plenty to keep players coming back.

“Though we can’t say what specifically in the future, we are absolutely committed to experimentation. It’s something we want to do more with. It’s one of the beauties of having a game that’s 20 years old. We can do crazy stuff at this point and say, ‘Hey, you know what? Here’s the main game that everybody’s playing right now, but let’s try this MoP remix thing and see how it goes’.

“Depending on that, we may do more stuff like that, or we might do something completely different. Our goal is to ensure that people always feel like there’s more World of Warcraft right around the corner. We’re not ready to commit to exactly this cadence or faster or slower, but we will continue to ensure that every time we do something, people feel like something is right around the corner.

After a strong start to The War Within, time will tell if the dev team can maintain their current momentum. With Season 1 set to launch on September 10, the true endgame will begin, and we can get an idea of the expansion’s successes in its entirety.

If you haven’t yet, check out our DPS tier list to see how the spec is performing in The War Within right now. If you’re considering changing roles, we also have a full breakdown of Tank and Healer specs.