Battle for Azeroth, the seventh expansion of the long-running World of Warcraft online multiplayer game that returns to the series' 1994 roots of orcs versus humans (and their respective friends), has gone live for millions of players around the world.
In Sydney, hundreds of fans gathered for a launch party to celebrate the new chapter in the fourteen-year-old game, which still attracts a huge audience and has reportedly grossed more than $12 billion.
Replay
World of Warcraft lets players choose any of a number of races for their character, with each race loyal to either the Horde or Alliance faction. Since it's a living world, the story of the rivalry between the two groups has progressed over the course of the past 14 years.
Though recent expansions have seen all races band together to stop demonic and interstellar threats to their planet, Battle for Azeroth will see the Horde's new chief Sylvanas lead an all-out assault on the Alliance. And yet Darren Williams, senior software engineer on the game, hints that not all Horde players should feel like they're being forced to play the bad guys.
"Right now Horde are being the aggressors, and characters like Sylvanas … their stories will continue to develop through the expansion," he says.
Players have already expressed concern that recent events in the game have forced them to commit war crimes while Sylvanas, once a fan favourite character, becomes increasingly insane. Some have complained that they created their Horde character at a time when they expected to be a hero in the world, but in the lead-up to Azeroth they're being made to be a villain.
"We've seen the release since of a cinematic, called The Old Soldier, with [veteran Orc character] Saurfang, where you kind of get a glimpse of how this affects the Horde, and where the story may be heading, and how you can, as a Horde player, rally behind your faction," Willaims says.
While the narrative of Azeroth — and whether or not the two factions will end up united against a common enemy as they have many times before — remains to be seen, in the meantime the conflict makes for several new gameplay changes in WoW.
Battle for Azeroth players will be able to travel to new kingdoms (one each for Horde and Alliance), play as new races, gather resources to support the war effort in new "island expeditions", and fight battles in a new 20-player siege mode inspired by the original Warcraft strategy games.
Though WoW requires a paid subscription to play, expansions offer new content and existing players must purchase them separately. Previous expansions' content is generally added to the base game once a new expansion releases, so new players only need to buy Azeroth to access everything.
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