The world of Azeroth is in trouble yet again, which must mean it is time for another World of Warcraft expansion, the tenth one to be precise. There are a wave of visions afflicting many of the denizens of Azeroth and it is up to you to investigate what is causing the disturbance with help from several of the better-known characters from the World of Warcraft universe such as Magni Bronzebeard, Jaina Proudmoore and Thrall. Thanks to Blizzard Entertainment we were given access to a special WoWCast presentation and early access to the alpha for the new expansion entitled The War Within.

The War Within promises to be one of the most ambitious expansions ever released for World of Warcraft and marks the start of the multi-expansion storyline ‘The Worldsoul Saga” that will play out over the course of three expansions, The War Within, Midnight and The Last Titan. The newest and tenth expansion in the WoW universe will take place off the west coast of Pandaria near Kalimdor and encompass 4 new zones Azj-Kahet, Isle of Dorn, The Ringing Deeps and Hallowfall. For the alpha test we were able to create a new character at level 70 which is the recommended level for the new content, I chose an Orc Warrior, and jumped into the game. Isle of Dorn will be the zone where both races start off in the new expansion and it will also contain the main city, Dornogal that will act as a player hub for the new expansion. The Isle of Dorn itself was the only area we had access to during the alpha and it is an amazing looking zone full of mountains, valleys and sweeping plains as well as many a creature as far as the eye can see and quests, plenty of quests!

After doing a few quests and dispatching of several dozen enemies my character hit level 71 and I got to experience two of the new features being introduced with the new expansion, the first of these being ‘Delves.’, which are 1-5 player short form content designed to be the new endgame pillar for world content focused players. The Delve I entered was called “Earthcrawl Mines” and I was accompanied by a Dwarven NPC that I could choose to serve as a healer or a DPS character and I could also choose from two tiers of difficulty. Working through the Delve was a short but fun and challenging experience and soon I was at the final boss which I dispatched with minimal trouble, and I was able to collect my reward which, from memory, was a pair of bracers that were a good upgrade for the ones I was currently wearing.

I can certainly see what Blizzard are trying to do here with Delves and that is to provide end game content for players who don’t want to tackle something as stressful as Mythic+ content and the toxicity that can at times go along with such content. The mechanics in the Delve I tackled reminded me of a more story heavy version of Torghast in that there were bonus abilities that you could elect to pick up as you progressed through each section of the content that served to help you feel stronger as you headed deeper into the scenario you were tackling, the ability to have whatever NPC accompanying you act as a healer is also a great inclusion for players who elect to tackle Delves in a solo capacity. Delves are an intriguing new component to the game and it will be interesting to see how Blizzard expands upon them in the future and to see exactly how they serve as end game progression for players who don’t want to explore the higher Mythic+ tiers.

The second major new feature that happens when you reach level 71 is the introduction of hero talents, this basically introduces two new skill trees that you will need to choose between and progress down, the warrior skill trees were entitled Mountain Thane and Slayer. The Mountain Thane tree is based around fierce fighters that live to challenge themselves against worthy opponents and draw strength from the earth and the power from the storm, they strike blows like a thunderclap to overwhelm enemies, whereas Slayers are vicious warriors who set their sights on a target and pursue it relentlessly with an onslaught of might and steel. If the warrior hero talent trees are anything to go by then it looks like each class will have a tree devoted to single target and another to AOE damage which will hopefully help to further diversify builds within the game.

Of course, these aren’t the only new features coming to the game once the expansion is released, there is a tonne of new features and game mechanics for WoW players to get excited about. One of the bigger ones is ‘Warbands’ which promises account wide progression whilst playing with multiple characters within the game. The first part of this is a newly designed character select screen that shows a selection of your characters chilling around a campfire, though purely a visual change more than a functional one it is still a nice touch, the more intriguing features that come with warbands are an account-wide bank that allows transfer of items across multiple characters, frankly it is amazing that it has taken this long for a feature like this to be introduced but finally it is here.

There is also new gear that will drop that will have a ‘warbound’ tag that can freely be transferred between characters on your account which will make gearing up twinks easier, for the transmog fanatics out there, and there are a lot of us, will be excited for the fact that transmogs can now be shared across all characters on your account even if the character who picks up the item can’t wear it, for example if a hunter loots a piece of plate armour that their class is not able to wear they will still be able to unlock that transmog for any plate wearing characters they have on their account, fantastic! Dynamic flight is also here and it is amazing, dynamic flight will allow you to take most of the flying mounts you currently own and use it with the new flying style introduced in the Dragonflight expansion.

Players have been calling out for this for ages and it is great that Blizzard have listened and integrated this into the game. The Earthen are a race of ancient underground dwelling dwarves that have been referenced in WoW on a few occasions before but when the War Within drops they will become the newest playable race for the Alliance! They will have feature combat enhancing abilities that revolve around increased strength and stone form which will increase defence, the new race will be unlocked for you to use in character creation by progressing through a certain quest line in The War Within. What I have listed here are just some of the major features you can expect to experience later this year, there is so much more to experience that it would be difficult to list all the features and changes here.

When the War Within was first announced I was really excited by the list of new features that Blizzard planned to implement for the expansion, now that I have got my hands on the expansion and had a chance to experience some of them I can safely say I am even more excited to jump in to The War Within when it releases later this year.

World of Warcraft: The War Within does not currently have a release date, but you can pre-purchase it here, if you want to get it the moment its out.