WoW devs defend The War Within’s controversial early access offering

During a WoW Q&A, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas explained the reasoning behind the controversial early access offering for The War Within.

Lots of excitement bubbled up around the announcement of World of Warcraft’s The War Within expansion. However, some of it was deflated by the news that pre-ordering the $90 Epic Edition would net users three days of early access.

This marks the first time that Blizzard’s ever promised early access for a WoW expansion. But the growing trend in gaming at large means few were surprised by the news.

Still, it caused quite a bit of backlash from the community, to which developers have since responded. In a BlizzCon Q&A session, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas explained why the team decided to push forward with early access to begin with.

WoW dev defends The War Within’s early access pre-order bonus

One of the first fan questions in WoW’s BlizzCon Q&A asked developers to address the controversial early access bonus. Ion Hazzikostas went on to explain the origins of this particular decision, saying it began with the studio trying to add value to all expansion bundles.

For example, with The War Within, the Base Edition pre-order now offers a Level 70 boost – in Dragonflight, this same boost only existed for Heroic Edition orders and up. Of course, the Heroic and Epic Editions needed their own special offerings. Cosmetics and the like were under consideration, yet the team settled on beta and early access for Epic purchasers given trends across the industry.

At its core, though, Hazzikostas insisted early access is “really just a head start on leveling up.” However, Mythic 0 dungeons, weekly quests, and anything else that may offer a competitive advantage won’t be available during that three-day period.

Talk about WoW’s early access controversy begins at the 1:13 mark in the video below:

The Game Director ended the discussion by noting, “The goal here is to make sure that certainly by the time Season 1 starts, if you have two players with similar playstyles… one of them had early access and the other one didn’t, you really can’t tell which is which in terms of any competitive aspect of the game that matters.”

Ultimately, it seems Blizzard wants to ensure everything remains fair across the board. How that will all play out remains to be seen, of course.

WoW: The War Within currently lacks a due date but is expected to arrive by the end of 2024.