World of Warcraft 2.0 – the dream of many fans. Now the WoW director speaks about a renewal of the world and has good news to report.
Many players of World of Warcraft dream of a “WoW 2.0” – a fundamental overhaul of the entire game, maybe even a completely new game. However, this is not very likely – after all, WoW is still running solidly and creating a game with over 20 years of development from scratch is an undertaking that will swallow many years.
However, it is not entirely unfounded. The Game Director of WoW sees it as “probable” that the old world will be redesigned.
What was said? In an interview with GameSpot, the Game Director of World of Warcraft, Ion Hazzikostas, spoke about the possibility of a “revamp” of the old world, a refresh where areas are reworked. Hazzikostas stated that this “will probably happen”.
What might sound to many like just a theoretical possibility should take a closer look at the interviews in recent years and the timing of this information. Because Hazzikostas is usually quite cautious with things he labels as “unlikely” or “probable”.
Cataclysm 2.0– but a revision is welcome.
The GameSpot interview was also the first major interview regarding Patch 10.2 – and the creators behind WoW usually consider very carefully what information they want to convey.
All this means that a “revamp of Azeroth” is not only “probable,” as Hazzikostas calls it, but very likely already in planning and implementation.
What might such a redesign look like? It is clear that hardly anyone wants a “Cataclysm 2.0”. Because one of the major drawbacks of Cataclysm was that old areas were lost forever and can no longer be visited (except in WoW Classic).
Additionally, many areas have lost their old identity. While each area used to have small, individual stories, nearly everything in the Cataclysm areas revolves around the Shadowhammer cult. A story that is actually long over and becomes less relevant each year. Something that Hazzikostas also acknowledges:
That is a deficit. When you take a step back and think of World of Warcraft as a continuous, living world, we have maneuvered ourselves into a corner here where we have all these iconic locations that we cannot use because they are already used.
It seems clear that when the redesign comes, players will still be able to travel to the “old” versions of the areas (that is, in their Cataclysm state). Here, an expansion of Chromie Time would be a simple, easy way to quickly bring multiple areas up to date.
However, a completely different idea and possibility is seen by the analyst Bellular:
Bellular considers it realistic that Blizzard could simply “rebuild” Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms from scratch, meaning they could create a new version of these continents. Then, the old world could be much better adjusted to dragon riding. After all, the current size of the “old” areas is too small for dragon riding – the zones all seem rather tiny as a result.
A complete redesign of an entire continent would likely be the closest we could ever get to a “WoW 2.0”.
How likely is that? To be completely honest, a redesign of Azeroth is very likely. It may not happen in the next expansion, but it is highly likely to happen in the following expansion. Even now, many buildings and objects can be found in the game files that are new assets of old places. For example, high-resolution buildings for the Elwynn Forest have already been found, as well as graphically impressive ships and numerous components of human structures.
It looks like the World of Warcraft team is currently working “on the side” on a large-scale overhaul of the old world. That this overhaul is coming is also very likely due to the recent words of the Game Director. The only question is: When?
Are you excited about a completely renovated Azeroth? How would you overhaul the old world and what would you wish for?
