World of Warcraft Developers Confirm Worldsoul Saga Expansions Are Being Developed Simultaneously

World of Warcraft: Worldsoul Saga's three expansions are being worked on simultaneously.

By Ricky Frech

At BlizzCon 2023, developer Blizzard Entertainment did something unprecedented in World of Warcraft's nearly 30-year history. The team announced the next three expansions for the ever-popular MMORPG all at once. The War Within is the first part of what Blizzard is calling the Worldsoul Saga, and it will launch next year. After that, the team is promising to bring both Midnight and The Last Titan over the next several years. As part of this announcement, the World of Warcraft team constantly mentioned speed, with long-time WoW developer Chris Metzen quipping about not wanting players to have their grandkids controlling the mouse for them. After the on-stage event, we got a better idea of how quickly Blizzard is hoping to get the next three expansions out.

In a wide-ranging interview with Warcraft Wiki, the team said, "Can't speak to specifics, but yes, we want to finish the Worldsoul Saga before 2030. Teams have been parallelized, they're already working on Midnight." That's an important clarification about speed. Knowing that the team is already working on Midnight, it seems likely that the release cadence may speed up from its current "every-two-years" cycle.

Of course, fans will note that even following the current cadence would mean The Last Titan would be out in 2028, so saying the team wants to finish by 2030 isn't actually speeding up too much. That said, in one of the BlizzCon panels, associate design director Maria Hamilton and lead world artist Kristy Moret said "Zones and story in Midnight are already underway. We're very good now at working at multiple things simultaneously, and have built out that pipeline to be able to work on expansions in parallel." 

Hopefully, this move to a somewhat quicker development cycle makes it easier for the team to tell a cohesive story across multiple expansions. Having a voice like Metzen back in the fold will certainly help, but this is untapped territory for World of Warcraft. On the other hand, if things are moving too quickly, it could be tough for Blizzard to react to features and storylines that fans don't like. In that way, it's kind of a double-edged sword for Blizzard that it will need to learn to navigate on the fly as it tries to improve its storytelling and consistency.

What Do We Know About World of Warcraft: The War Within?

The BlizzCon deep dive panel gave fans a great first look at what's coming with World of Warcraft: The War Within. One of the more exciting new additions is Delves, which are quick adventures that Blizzard hopes to serve as a new form of end-game content. These can be completed in a group or solo, giving players options to play how they want. Blizzard is also introducing a new concept called Warbands, which should be a huge boon to alt characters. Essentially, everything you earn can be shared across your characters, making it much easier to give gear to your alt to get them up to snuff much more quickly.

The War Within will also introduce Hero talents, giving players 10 new talents to further customize their characters. This all comes on top of the start of a brand-new story that'll take place over several expansions. If nothing else, fans might finally learn more about the Sword of Sargeras after several years of Blizzard teasing them.

World of Warcraft is available now on PC. The War Within doesn't have a firm release date, but it should launch sometime next fall. 

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