Developer Blizzard Entertainment unexpectedly took to the official site of MMORPG World of Warcraft to outline what awaits players in Dragonflight in the 2023 Roadmap. The expansion has been out for almost a month, and players have soared in the skies of Azeroth with Dragonriding, fought the Primalist threat, earned Renown with various factions and delved into dungeons and the latest raid. However, this tale is only just beginning.
“In planning out the road ahead following the release of Dragonflight, we’ve been mindful of the duty we owe our players to nurture this living world and, frankly, the need to do better than we have at times in the recent past. Our goal for Dragonflight is that there should always be something right around the corner, with a new update hitting our test realms shortly after the last one is live and in your hands.”
In the blog post, the team revealed the plan to deliver six content patches that are fairly evenly spaced over the course of 2023. This will include two major updates that include new zones, raids and seasonal rewards as well as smaller updates in-between. Those will be focused on expanding and evolving the world with new events, system updates, holidays, new narrative chapters and cinematics and more.
But the most important thing is that those updates will provide the developers with more opportunities to respond to feedback and change or add elements based on players’ wishes.
The recently announced update 10.0.5 will be going live early next year. It will contain the Trading Post system, WoW’s take on a battle pass, which will allow players of all playstyles to earn a variety of fun in-game cosmetic rewards of their choice. Transmog lovers rejoice: the option to transmog Poor-quality and Common-quality items will be coming in this update as well.
Shortly after that, Blizzard will release update 10.0.7 onto the Public Test Realm. It will contain a new quest campaign and repeatable world content set in the Forbidden Reach, as the dracthyr return to their place of confinement (along with some unexpected guests) to learn more about their origins and their destiny. Human and Orc cosmetic Heritage Armor is also planned for this update.
“There will also be a 10.1.5 and 10.1.7 content update coming in the second half of the year, bridging the period between our second and third major updates. We don’t want there to be any specific formula for the size or shape of these updates, but the goal is simply more Warcraft: more story, more content, more rewards, more events, more tech improvements, with less downtime between them. I don’t want to spoil everything, and I’m confident that there are at least a couple of surprises coming along the way that no one is expecting. And some of the details simply aren’t decided yet, because your feedback will help shape exactly what we prioritize in these updates.”
Check out the Dragonflight roadmap below for all the details!