The War Within – All information about the new expansion

The War Within is coming soon and now is the perfect time to learn all about World of Warcraft’s next expansion.

The next expansion of World of Warcraft is not far away. But what is WoW: The War Within actually about? What’s the story? What are the big features and changes?

With this article we want to give you an overview of all the new features of World of Warcraft The War Within.

The article is regularly updated with new information, so check back occasionally.

The essentials in brief:

The War Within Beta

The War Within alpha is currently underway, with only a few people allowed. The areas and features are gradually unlocked here.

The beta will open later and more players will be invited to it. You can register for the beta as usual. If you want guaranteed beta access, you can also pre-order the expensive “Epic Edition” of the expansion.

Great features of The War Within

The War Within only has a few major features that may not seem that significant at first glance. But this is mainly because WoW increasingly wants to bring new “evergreen” features that will be good for the game over a long period of time.

Hero Talents

Instead of continuing to expand the previously known talent trees, each class gets new “hero talents”. These are smaller, separate talent trees. Each specialization has a choice of two sets of hero talents, although multiple specializations can share the same sets.

The hero talent trees are designed to change the way your class plays a little and usually significantly improve one or two skills. At level 80 you have unlocked all the talents of a hero talent tree, although there are some “choice talents” where you have to choose between 2 options.

war pack

One of the biggest features that fans have been waiting for for years is the Warbands. This isn’t actually an actual feature, but rather a departure from the game’s previous character-focused design.

In the future, almost all achievements in the game will be account-bound. Progress in reputation factions (“fame”), achievements, but also the completion of story quests will apply to the entire account.

At the same time, you can send your resources back and forth between characters much more easily. This is also possible because of the new War Pack Bank, which offers account-wide space for materials, equipment and more. However, unlocking this bank is expensive and costs a total of over 3 million gold if you really want all the slots.

Delves – The Depths of Azeroth

For fans of outdoor content there will be “Delves” in the future. These are something like mini-dungeons that you can find in the open world. Here you fight alongside an NPC (such as Brann Bronzebeard) and explore underground caves for treasure and special loot.

The new areas in The War Within

At the start of the expansion there are 4 new, large areas. 3 of them are underground caves, although these are so spacious and vegetatively varied that you often don’t even notice that you are underground.

Island of Thorn

The island was discovered off the western coast of Pandaria and represents the introduction to the new expansion. Here you meet the Earthen and their land Khaz Algar. At the same time, the new capital Dornogal is located here, which will be the new expansion hub for the Alliance and Horde.

The Sounding Depths

The descent into the depths of the planet begins in the Sounding Depths. Earthen people, the so-called “machine speakers”, also live here. They use ancient Titan devices to shape the world and oppose those who stand in the Earthen’s way – including some now rising from the depths.

Healing fall

Healfall is illuminated by a giant crystal on the ceiling of the cave. This means that there is even flowering vegetation and several peoples can survive here. Including a splinter group of the Arathi, people loyal to the light, who are caught in the constant fight against the Nerubians.

Azj-Kahet

Azj-Kahet is the center of the Nerubian kingdom and the center of their culture. This is where Xal’atath set out to mutate the Nerubians with new powers, creating an army that no one can stop (until we come along again).

The story of The War Within

So far, many details of the story are still uncertain, but at least the plot is already known.

All over the world, the residents of Azeroth are beginning to have visions. Many see this as a warning that the World Soul is in danger of being corrupted by the Void.

These may be exactly the plans of Xal’atath, also known as the “Harbinger”. This elf-shaped creature prepares to usher in the Void Age and pave the way for the Void Lords.

To achieve her goals, she even destroys the mage city of Dalaran.

For this purpose, she recruits the former servants of the Old Gods, the Nerubians, and wants to mutate them into even more powerful beings with the blood of the Old Gods. It is not yet certain what her exact plan is.

If you don’t know who Xal’atath actually is, we’ve explained her full story here.

In an attempt to unravel Xal’atath’s plans, we fight our way deeper into the planet and explore the areas mentioned above.

What else is in The War Within?

Apart from the big features, The War Within also has the “usual suspects” that come with every expansion. These are classics like new dungeons, but also small changes that are just nice. This includes:

Even though at first glance it may seem like The War Within doesn’t have that much to offer, you should keep in mind that Blizzard has released an extremely large number of patches in a very short period of time in the last few months. There is new content almost every few weeks and that should continue with The War Within.

What are you particularly looking forward to in “The War Within”?