Terminally On-line
That is Terminally On-line: PC Gamer’s very personal MMO column. Each different week, I will be sharing my ideas on the style, interviewing fellow MMO-heads like me, taking a deep-dive into mechanics we have all taken without any consideration, and, sometimes, bringing in visitor writers to speak about their MMO of alternative.
World of Warcraft: Midnight (and, certainly, The Final Titan) are performing some fascinating issues. Relatively than the same old MMO shtick of a brand new and thrilling continent to discover, they’re revamping outdated zones. By all means, they’re nonetheless “new”—the rebuilt Silvermoon is totally completely different, as are the questing zones exterior, however Blizzard’s actually digging into its outdated world in a manner it hasn’t performed because the outdated world overhaul in Cataclysm.
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Homicide Row, beforehand only a avenue, is now a sprawling district stuffed with hidden bars and noble dens of degeneracy. The Sunwell is positioned on the finish of a protracted, ocean-stretching bridge that appears prefer it was peeled straight out of the idea artwork. There are these little floating terraces with blood elves consuming wine.
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It is one of many best-looking cities Blizzard’s ever put collectively—however it’s not simply Silvermoon I am impressed by. The encompassing Ghostlands are equally pretty, particularly now there’s not an important bloomin’ scar working by way of it. Zul’aman has been fleshed out from a raid into its personal fully-fledged zone.
It is so good, actually, that I am in a little bit of an existential disaster. See, standard knowledge means that an MMO’s lifespan ought to embody expansions, and that these expansions ought to take you to new thrilling locales. In case your enlargement would not have a brand new continent (or planet, or alternate actuality, no matter) to discover—are you actually attempting?
However MMOs are additionally meant to be these residing, respiration issues, and no sport is aware of the value of deserted zones greater than World of Warcraft. As of 2026, there at the moment are 9 main continents on Azeroth alone, every cut up up into their very own zones. There are two variations of Draenor. You may pop alongside to the realm of demise.
A part of me wonders if Shadowlands was a symptom of this downside, the necessity to all the time go elsewhere. There is a time period known as “spectacle creep” that is relevant right here, and I suggest a cousin: MMOs have an issue with continent creep. Should you preserve a sport working for 20 years you are simply gonna have too lots of them.
Midnight, in the meantime, seems like this one large magic trick. Functionally these are nonetheless “new” areas with new quests, endgame actions, and so forth. However they do not really feel like they’re including to the cognitive load of remembering what number of bits of Azeroth there truly are. Haranar and the Voidstorm are allowed to be tangential areas for side-plots, relatively than cumbersome additions to the worldbuilding of the aged MMO.
Relatively than wrestling with new lore, Blizzard might have been constructing on outdated tales—and the good thing about that historical past reveals. Silvermoon feels much more textured and sprawling than Dornogal ever did. Which begs the query: Why has it taken WoW over twenty years to start out actually turning its gaze to the previous? Past Cataclysm, which largely solely revamped something for levelling functions.
Why has it taken WoW over twenty years to start out actually turning its gaze to the previous?
And certain, it is all smoke and mirrors. Functionally-speaking, Silvermoon 2.0 is a brand new metropolis, as is the Eversong Forest, as is Zul’Aman. However how exploring an MMO world feels is extra essential than the precise mechanical guts of it. And for some time, WoW has felt sprawling however in some way small. All these bits and items silo’d off from one another in their very own little corners.
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I’ve to marvel what WoW would appear to be if Blizzard had spent one or two extra expansions as justification to flesh out older zones, relatively than tacking on new ones—maybe alternating between expansions the place an historic continent rises out of the mists (once more) and ones that appear to be Midnight, the place a narrative will get woven by way of some outdated zones that may get shuffled into Chromie time.
What does a WoW with a Stormwind or Orgrimmar that was upgraded each 5 years, not 10+ appear to be? What does the default levelling expertise (which at the moment sends you to a mysterious dragon island as your first introduction to Azeroth) appear to be if we hadn’t gone gallivanting across the realms of demise?
Possibly I am simply pushing the difficulty elsewhere. At this level, WoW is a large number of interconnected areas tethered collectively by portals, boats, and in some circumstances, a time-travelling gnome/dragon. We would simply be giving Chromie an even bigger workload.
As a substitute of getting this nice large map with a bunch of islands tacked onto the facet, you’d have one cohesive world sat on prime of an interdimensional lasagne of older variations of Azeroth. Is that inherently higher? Effectively, judging by how spoiled-rotten with nostalgia Silvermoon 2.0 makes me really feel, it definitely is not worse.
