With Shadowlands, World of Warcraft wants to become modern, like a current game. But can that succeed? The Game Director is convinced.
World of Warcraft is not getting any younger. With its over 15 years, the MMORPG is now older than some of its players, and you can see that in many areas. After all, the development of the game is also held back by the aging engine and technical limitations. At the same time, however, the game has such a comprehensive and rich world that this is a great argument for a visit to Azeroth.
With Shadowlands, Blizzard wants to make World of Warcraft a true “game from 2020.” Can that succeed?
In an interview with Venturebeat, the Game Director of World of Warcraft, Ion Hazzikostas, talked about the advantages and problems that WoW brings. After all, the game is many years old and has some systems in the background that slow down new developments or consume a lot of working time for an overhaul. However, this also offers room for many new ideas.
Old code hinders the creation of innovations
As good as it is to have many old contents and systems available, it can also be crippling. Code from 15 years ago simply no longer meets the current state of technology. Moreover, many developers probably could not imagine 15 years ago that their code would still be relevant today.
Of course, there is a burden with the technology. It is a double-edged sword where we are bound by decisions made 10 or 15 years ago by people who could not even imagine the situation we are in today (…) But that’s why we have to look back a little with each new expansion and renew or update some parts of our infrastructure.
Character models as a strong improvement
One of the most important elements of these innovations in Shadowlands is the new character customization. What may initially seem like a minor detail actually provides a lot of diversity and much more freedom in character creation. Hazzikostas considers this so important that it’s one of his favorite projects. The diversity of the game world is increased by the new customizations.
I believe that the new character customizations are one of my favorite features from Shadowlands. This is both a success and a product of the art of our character designers, as well as our developers.
The character customization system has been drastically overhauled in the background. Previously, innovations became a problem because every new detail had to be adjusted to all others – this caused exponentially more work. Now the whole system is modular. This makes it relatively easy for developers to add new options or adjust and improve existing options.
We have already presented some of the best new combinations of customizations in this article.
Level phase sensibly divides the world
One of the best features to keep World of Warcraft modern is the new “Chromie Time.” In this, players can freely choose where they want to experience their leveling experience and choose an add-on of their choice.
Previously, the level restrictions were loosened by scaling areas, but still in quite narrow ranges. Players had to go to Outland (The Burning Crusade) or Northrend (Wrath of the Lich King) forcefully between levels 60 and 80. These were the two oldest expansions that could not visually and gameplay-wise keep up with the current World of Warcraft. Here, the game’s age was most evident.
Whoever switched to Outland at level 60 felt like a foreign object – their character looked relatively good, but the entire environment and the enemy types were mushy pixel sludge.
With Shadowlands, this is different. The “standard path” means that new players experience their tutorial on Exile’s Reach, which is graphically and gameplay-wise in line with the current zeitgeist of WoW. They are then led into the visually impressive story of Battle for Azeroth, ultimately arriving in the modern, current Shadowlands.
We have a well-tuned experience that really represents the best that World of Warcraft has to offer in 2020 and reflects the modern game. A new player does not play content from 2010 and then from 2012 or 2014.
Shadowlands is a 2020 game. It is a modern MMO for many reasons, built on the foundations of this older franchise.
New players are also helped by a Mentor program, where veterans can assist newcomers.
In addition, WoW with Shadowlands offers further features that clearly stem from a more modern era. For example, Torghast has some elements of many “rogue-like” games and functions modularly. Several different corridors and platforms combine to create always new experiences with different challenges. This is also intended to keep World of Warcraft fresh – in addition to all the old systems that still work well today.
In summary, Shadowlands seems to be on a good path to make World of Warcraft fit for the demands and expectations of players in 2020 – despite all the limitations that such an old game inevitably brings. Even some of the most annoying things are likely to disappear forever.
